Borris; My New Best Friend

This coming Tuesday, March 3rd, has been designated as "The Best Day of the Year 2009" in my mind. It's true: 2009 has just begun, but I already know that Tuesday will be the highlight of the year. Actually, winning the lottery is about the only thing that could top it, and since I don't play the lottery, Tuesday is certainly the runner up. Tuesday is the day that my new best friend, Borris the carpet man, is coming to install our new flooring. You have NO IDEA how bad my carpet is. Not even in your wildest dreams could you possibly be able to imagine the horror - I won't go into it - you really don't want to know what I know about the carpet... bad things... dirty things... stinky things... let's just leave it at that. But for a quick example of the rough life our carpet has had in the six years we've lived here, see below:

Rhett spilled red Gatorade this morning. How he got ahold of it is another story for another day, but I mean, it's as if the one-year-old wants the carpet to go out with a BANG! You want to know the real beauty of it all though?? I did not try to clean it up. I didn't even try to sop it up with a towel. I am soooooooooo sick of cleaning this forsaken carpet that when I walked upon Rhett's spill this morning, I threw my hands up, cursed the carpet gods, and vowed that I am not cleaning up ONE more spill or "issue" that occurs on my floor. I am not even vacuuming. Why bother? This floor of nightmares will be out of here Tuesday, and I think if I have to vacuum or clean up a spill one more time before then I will explode.

Take heart, for I have found something that eases my stress about this situation: It helps to go stand next to the new flooring piled in the computer room that is awaiting its installment on Wednesday and run my fingers along its clean, smooth, stain resistant and easy-to-care-for surfaces. Is it wrong to be deeply in love with boxes of new flooring?

Can't forget to include some pictures and stories for the grandparents:

Rhett decided he would help Grant and myself unload and unpack the groceries tonight...That is, until he realized he has his own grocery cart and thought of how splendidly fun it would be to pile as many of those groceries as possible into his little cart. Thanks for your help, Rhett Man. I have to admit though, it was kind of cute though. He knew that Mommy puts the groceries in a cart, and he wanted to do the same thing. It slowed our efforts down a bit (and believe me when I say I can't get the groceries put away fast enough), but it was one of those times I forced myself to stop and enjoy the moment.

This is the kind of craft you create when you have boys: A burning building that your seven toy firetrucks can pretend to put out. Now, I may not be a good drawer, and I may not be able to throw a ball without embarrassing myself, but I can make one killer burning building out of construction paper.

"Look, Mom! I made the letter "A" with microwavable popcorn bags." What? Doesn't everyone make "A's" out of popcorn bags?

And, drum roll for the

Picture of the Month.....................................

I told you the child is always hungry.

buh-dum-ching!

A Sing-Along With Rhett

A little singing at the dinner table isn't exactly what I would call good manners, but we don't have formal meals around here much since it's Kerry's busy season.

He reminds me a bit of Stevie Wonder in this first video. Do you see it???

(He really can say helicopter. It comes out more like "oppter".)

And now I know!

I was playing with Grant tonight when I was told some things I did not know. Grant informed me that if I was going to play with him, I was "going to have to be tough like a boy and be able to do lots of stuff because boys are smarter than girls."

And now I know...

(Boy, does he have another thing comin' or what???!!!! ha ha)

Because is not a conjunction!!

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I really tried to keep my mind on the sermon, but I was being distracted by other thoughts. Lunch plans? Nope. How to keep Grant quiet? Nope. Planning when I was going to get all my schoolwork done that day? Nope. The true answer will positively prove I am a nerd.................... It was the punctuation that was used in the Bible verses that were shown on the big screens. I tried to ignore it. I tried not to care. But, it seems you can take the English teacher away from the English book, but you can't take the English book out of the English teacher. I think that I should add on to that that I not only teach English, (have for nine years now - WOW! Makes me sound OLD!), but I also taught the 4th writing TAKS for three years which I think is the biggest factor for my pickyness (not sure how to spell that since it's not a real word) with the written language. I guess you could say writing and its mechanics are burned into my brain whether I want them to be or not (Did you catch on that I'm trying to make my dorkiness sound - well - understandable???). Sure, I still make careless mistakes in my writing (and I am still a horrible speller), but that is not the point here. The point here is: "Because" is NOT a coordinating conjunction! NEVER put a comma before the word "because". In the Bible verses that were viewed in church, "because" continually had commas before it, and it drove me BONKERS!! I think the writer was getting confused with which rule to follow. It can be confusing as "because" is a subordinating conjunction (Please don't make me list them. There are too many!!!) and not a coordinating conjunction (which are: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). And, when used as the first word in a complex sentence, a comma IS placed between the dependent and independent clauses, but not when the subordinating conjunction is in the middle of the clauses.

For example, below is an instance when the dependent clause comes first, (the subordinating conjunction coming at the beginning is what makes the clause dependent) and therefore a comma is needed to separate the dependent and independent clause:
Because my dog makes horrible messes on the carpet, I am getting new flooring next week.

Now I will share an instance when the subordinating conjunction "because" is used in the middle of a complex sentence, and therefore a comma is not needed to separate the dependent and independent clauses. **Notice that the dependent clause comes at the end of the sentence instead of at the beginning as in the previous example:
I am getting new flooring next week because my dog makes horrible messes on the carpet.

Subordinating conjunctions should not be confused with coordinating conjunctions. There is a quick and easy rule to follow to make sure you are properly punctuating coordinating conjunctions: Cover up the conjunction in the middle of the sentence (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). If there is a complete sentence on BOTH sides of the conjunction, you need to put a comma BEFORE the conjunction.
Let's work with the example below:
I need new flooring and I need a maid.
If you cover up the "and" in the middle of the sentence, you will see that there is a complete thought on BOTH sides. Complete thought #1: I need new flooring. #2: I need a maid. Since these are both complete thoughts, a comma should be placed BEFORE the conjunction (and).
My correctly punctuated sentence should look like this:
I need new flooring, and I need a maid.

If there is not a complete sentence on both sides of the conjunction (and), you do not need to add a comma. For example:
I need new flooring and a maid.

Well, I feel better. Perhaps I can now let go of the mechanical errors I saw in church , and I can now be a more active listener during the lesson. Boy, the devil really knows how to get me, huh? ha ha Look out, Devil. I'm on to you now!! Wah-ah-ahhhhhhhhhhh!!

Heart Day

It's amazing how Valentine's Day changes the older you get. The degree of change also seems to have everything to do with how many kids you have and how old the kids are. Even though Kerry and I are busier than ever, we still made time for a Valentine's Day celebration in honor of us. Of course, this celebration occurred Feb. 13th instead of the 14th for a couple of reasons, but after you've been married 8.5 years, that part really doesn't matter. What DOES matter is that we were able to spend some time together thanks to Kerry's mom since she watched the kids so we could go out. Going on a date is a big deal no matter the time of year, but it is an especially big deal this time of year because this is Kerry's "Busy Season", so he is quite scarce in our home. But, Kerry always slows down during the busiest time of his year and takes time out for Valentine's Day to treat me like a princess. This year we went to a new Mexican food restaurant (Are you surprised? ha ha) WITHOUT the kids! And, what Valentine's Day would be complete without flowers? I LOVE that Kerry got me PINK roses this year. Sure, I love any rose color - red is my favorite color after all. But, PINK was a spunky change of pace, and I feel warm and loved every time I look at them. Thanks, Boy, for not only loving me, but for working so hard for us!!!

On a totally different note, I am announcing that I am a horrible mother. I did nothing for my kids on Valentine's Day. Thankfully, Rhett does not know that something called "Valentine's Day" exists, and Grant was really happy about the Valentine party he had at school, so I didn't feel too badly about ignoring the holiday (although my guilt is growing as I am writing this). I normally would have made the boys AND myself Valentine's shirts, we would have done Valentine crafts, and there would be lots of heart shaped food during the day: heart shaped peanut butter sandwiches, heart shaped pancakes, heart shaped cookies, heart shaped sprinkles... But, I've made soooooo many shirts this year for the boys and other kiddos, and I really wasn't in the mood to pick up the horrendous mess crafting would have made, and I honestly HATE cooking, so I found myself feeling deprived of motivation for celebrating Valentine's Day. In my defense, I went ALL out for Christmas and Grant's birthday in all three departments of shirt-making, crafting and food, so surely that earns me some points, right????

Now on to some Valentine humor. (Did you know such a thing existed?) Below is a picture of a Valentine's Day craft that some of the kids in Grant's class made. The kids wrote affirmations about each student, and then those affirmations were glued on to the respective student's paper. Grant's hearts say things like:
"I like the way Grant shares the sand with me."
"I love the way Grant smiles."
"I love the way he is nice to me."
"He plays with me."
"I love his eyes."
"I love the way he listens."

But the winner is the heart that has the arrow pointing to it...

This heart says: "I love his tummy."

I don't know what it means either, but I thought you'd get a kick out of it just like Kerry and I did.

You can all relax now

Great news: I have once again found Heather B's blog. You may all go back to your regular lives now that this huge mystery has been solved.

On a side note, I am just overwhelmed at some of the hardships my blogging buddies are going through. If you thought you had a bad day, check out what these gals have been up to and say a little (or HUGE) prayer for them and what they are either dealing with over long periods of time, or something that just seems to be going on this week:
Cami Gilbert
Rachel Wells
Kate Martin
Jordan McCall
Jenny Wims (and hubby)
Amanda Tyer

To Heather B.

Heather, WHERE ARE YOU? I am trying to find your blog, but it seems to have disappeared. I so enjoyed reading your posts about your life with three boys. HELP! Is it still out there somewhere, or did you delete it?
PS. I L-O-V-E the comment you made about smacking Grant with his own pillowcase. That's a classic! I am STILL rolling in hysterics over it. Grant did give me a reason to his madness: "Well, Momma, I know we are going to move, so I was getting things out so we can pack them."
No.... we are not moving. Our house is not even on the market. He just wants to move. He thinks we are going to move into a two-story house that has a pool. The kid's got BIG ideas.

My New Hobby

I have a new hobby. I feel totally PUMPED about it. It gives me the same excited feeling I get when I sit at my sewing/embroidery machine to start a new project. What a RUSH! You'll never guess what it is.......wait for it........ wait for it....... that's right: visiting resale shops! Ta Da!! It all started because of this girl who teaches at Logos with me. She looks like a million bucks all of the time. She is constantly wearing the CUTEST most one-of-a-kind outfits that I had to ask her where she shopped. She commenced to tell me that she does most of her shopping at local resale shops. As if that was not exciting enough, she then started spouting off info about the outfit she was wearing at that moment, "I got this for two dollars. I got these (the absolute MOST precious jeans you've EVER seen - they had flowers going all the way down the sides) for twelve bucks. They were too long, so I cut them off." And let me tell ya, they looked so spunky with their frayed edges. Get this: the next time I saw her she was wearing this gorgeous cream colored knee-length jacket with red flowers embroidered on it. (I'm NOT doing it justice, sorry. You're just going to have to trust me on this.) I knew she for sure had to have spent a good $100 something bucks on it. Nope. She said she got it at a resale shop here in Sugar Land for $12. That was it - I was sold. A few days later the weekend arrived, and I hopped into my car and visited one of her top favorite resale shops. I had a BLAST! Look what I purchased:

Aren't these shoes to die for??!!! What could be better? They are pink and have bows. Wow! The best part... $5. And, no Shaye, you can't have them. :)

This is a fun cotton long-sleeved shirt. It has an empire waist and sweet crocheting at the top. $7

Last but certainly not least, my new sunglasses! Now this is a big deal because I am one of those obnoxious people who loses their sunglasses every few weeks. I do not spend bookoos on sunglasses for this very reason, so what a perfect item to buy at a resale shop! Am I right?? And what's not to love? They are red (hello - my FAVORITE color), and I love the tattoo inspired art on the sides. I am in love with them. But the best part of all is that I won't have to feel badly when they disappear in a month or so. They were only $5.

I really hope I didn't get taken advantage of... this was my first time, so I'm not totally sure if I got good deals or not. Well, nonetheless, I had a great time and spent very little money. My next stop is going to be Pitter Patter; a resale shop for kids. Oh, I can't wait to find the treasures that are awaiting me. I don't mind digging through piles and sneezing in order to find something great. Wish me luck.

Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick

Roosevelt forgot to mention that you should also wear one sock and blue goggles...