At least there's no snow yet...

I was eating dinner the other night with Brandon's family and we were talking about the amount and kind of exercise we all get during a normal day. Really, we were "complaining" about not having time to go to the gym. I piped up and said that I thought I got quite a bit of exercise just walking to and from my car and proceeded to tell them about a typical trek from my car to the office. I work on a University medical campus and, like most campuses, we are always expanding, building new buildings on top of parking lots. So we all walk a long way to our offices. I park my car- and if I"m late, I park WAAY back in the back of the parking lot. I have no idea how big the lot is but it has two entrance/exit areas on each side, if that helps. (I think its big.)

So I park the car and start the walk to the office, watching vigilantly for cars backing out of spaces or coming around a corner. Then I make it to the street, which is separated from the construction site by a wire fence. A crane is swinging some kind of equipment maybe 50 feet from the street and the pedestrians. Then we get to the crosswalk. There is no other way to get across the divided, 6 lane street. The campus has had such a problem with cars not stopping and pedestrians getting hit that they have put signs in the road and are sometimes parked in the median to watch for cars not yielding. (sounds safe, huh!?) So I make it across the first 3 lanes, wait in the median for the cars on the next side to stop, and continue on my way. Next parking lot. This one is for patients. Again, I watch for crazy parking lot drivers. I make it to the other side. All I have to cross now is a grassy bank down to the next street. (In heels, of course!) Rainy days are fun! Cross one more street that's not so bad and into the motor pool parking lot. If it's any after 8, everyone is backing out, so again, look out! And finally I make it to the building! Its exhausting just thinking about it! After all of that, they just rolled their eyes and made some comment about walking uphill in the snow both ways... :)

Question

Does anyone know of a website that will suggest recipes to you for meals during the week? I saw one with Blue Cross Blue Shield but I haven't been able to find it again and I can't find anything else like it (for free!). Its possible that nothing like that exists for free, but I thought I'd see if anyone had some insight for me. I would settle for a site that let me input a recipe and then make a list of ingredients for the week of recipes that I chose. Does that make sense? Anyone know of a site like that?
I'm on my way to being hyper-organized again!
Thanks for any input!

September Update

Its way past time for an update! Its been quite a month! About two months ago, Brandon and I decided it was time to see about getting me a full time 'regular' job. Peyton was so bored at home and was clearly ready to do something different during the day and the wedding business in OKC has finally succumbed to the weak economy. I looked at a lot of different resources for job hunting and I didn't even realize I had applied with the University of Oklahoma! But I got an interview with the medical campus and ended up getting the job. I've been here for about a month and I love my job!! I am the payroll coordinator for the maintenance department which is about as far from anything I figured I'd ever do but its a fantastic job and I am actually enjoying it! The hours will be really flexible and the benefits are great. I also really enjoy the people I work with.
Peyton is staying with Kathy while Im at work and on Tuesdays and Thursdays they go to Mothers Day Out. She teaches there but not his class. He has a very nice teacher and seems to thoroughly enjoy school! When he is just a little older, we'll probably put him in full time preschool before he goes to kindergarden. We keep our weekends busy. Last weekend Peyton and I checked out the train museum and had a blast! It is a working train yard but some of the trains are stationery exhibits. He couldnt have cared less about the exhibits- except the one with the tv! But we got to ride a real train! Oh my! He was so excited! He is really into trains right now. We'll go back again soon when Brandon can join us.
Brandon is working a lot again. Its fall and, at least for Earls, fall is a busy time. We have the fair- which Brandon will be helping with again this year. (Thank goodness not running it, though!) And there always seems to be a festival of some kind that they are involved with. Football season officially started in our house on Sunday and Brandon upgraded his satellite reciever just in time! His garage is a never ending project and it looks really nice! Ryan and Brandon put in carpet and a screen door while Peyton and I were in TN! It is by far the most comfortable garage I've ever been in!
Well my lunch time is about over, I better get back to work. Just wanted to update everyone on our big changes! I'll send out pictures soon.

The Big Bag of Popcorn

Its pretty common knowledge that I enjoy a good bowl of popcorn every night. Or at least I would LIKE to enjoy a good bowl of popcorn every night. I have a very nice popcorn popper now, thanks to Dad and a backup air popper, just in case. (Again, thanks to Dad!) I had been buying my popcorn kernels at the grocery store where 1 1/2 lbs costs about $1. One day when I was at Sams, I saw that a 50lb bag of kernels costs $15. I couldnt believe it! I was really throwing my money away on that one!! I didn't buy it that day but I definitely added it to the list for the next time. Well next time was this week! Brandon didnt know it was on the list and he about died when I said that we were definitely getting it! He looked really hard for a smaller bag but there wasn't one. I had already looked. He did make sure that I understood how much popcorn that would make before he loaded it into the basket.
So far no one believes that I can eat 50lbs of unpopped kernels in a year. We'll see. Even if I dont eat it all, I just have to eat half the bag to make it worth buying. Plus I'm pretty excited about the virtually unlimited supply of popcorn. (I did have to push the basket after that... we had 55 lbs of dog food, 50 lbs of popcorn kernels and two cases of water among all of the other smaller stuff. I got my workout that night!)

Summer is coming to an end

It occured to me last night that it might be time to think about closing the pool for the summer. I'll be working during the week and we'd have the weekends but we only have one weekend until Peyton and I go to TN and by the time we get back the weather will be winding down to fall. It will take A LONG time to drain so I figured I'd better start today. I learned a cool trick that drains it even slower than just pulling the plug but I get to direct the water and not flood one area of the backyard all at once. I learned how to use the water hose to siphon it out. So far its been draining a little over an hour and you can hardly notice a change. But I figure that's exactly how we filled it so it'll eventually work! Except that I plan to use a few days to drain it so that we don't flood the backyard. It holds a little less than 4,500 gallons.
... update ... another cool thing about draining the pool this way- it doesnt flood the backyard anyway! It drains out so slowly that the water is pretty much soaked up instead of pooling! I do have to move the hose around a little but its not nearly as bad as I expected. Just very slow! It took 2 whole days to fill the pool and I would expect that it will take that long or longer to drain.

I know you were all riveted by this.

2 Things

Earlier I got so caught up in the time machine metaphor that I forgot to mention 2 things. First of all, as an update to a previous post... I am NOT an Aldi shopper. Its a little sad, I was hoping to save $3 a month on groceries but the $3 is not worth the change in taste. Call us spoiled, call us picky, call us Walmart shoppers.

The second thing was Peytons super cute thing today. Today Peyton and I were cleaning the house and he picked up a 'wipee' and tried to clean Atlas' mouth! It was so cute! Atlas didn't appreciate it much. He was laying down and just raised his head and kind of looked at Peyton like 'what do you think you're doing?'. I laughed. Its still Atlas' turn to tolerate Peyton. He lets him sit on his back to watch TV and, of course, he is always blocking whatever walkway Peyton wants to use so Peyton just puts one leg over and then the other. The only time Atlas even seems bothered is when Peyton gets too close to his ears and even then he just looks around for me to rescue him.

OK now that I've unloaded my brain I can fold the laundry and go to bed. :)

The Land Line aka The Time Machine

Its 2:12pm on August 8, 2009 and I feel like it might as well be August 8, 1999. Ok maybe not. I really can't remember much about that date. I was probably about to start school again; I might have cleaned my room like I did today. Who knows! But right now I'm sitting in my pseudo-cleaned house listening to veggie tales and feeling nostalgic about at time when I didn't have a 2 1/2 x 4 inch appendage notifying me about the last email I received, a text about the latest weather changes or a week-old voicemail. My cell phone died a tragic death last night- if I plugged it in right now it would try in vain to sputter back to life. It kind of has seizures when it's plugged in.

So I unplugged the fax machine (so I can receive calls on the land line) and have now entered a cell-phone-free time warp. Its been kind of nice! When Peyton and I were sitting having our snack I did glance to the side of my plate to see if I might have missed a call or text while I was vacuuming. Instead I saw the tablecloth. But that was okay. I'd have to open the door and go outside if I want to know what the weather is like. I'd have to come to the computer (which I did) to see if I had an email. And its very strange not to know who is on the other end of the phone when I answer. (the land line is a fax/emergency line that does not have caller ID) The most disorienting thing about no cell phone is leaving the house. I actually decided not to go to the train museum (peyton didnt know I was planning on it or we would have had to go anyway) because I didnt want to drive to south OKC without a cell phone. Plus no one else knew I was planning on going. We could have been lost forever down there!

Do you realize that I had to go back 10 yrs to find a time when I didnt have a cell phone? Actually I used mom's giant black phone when I drove and I got my very own phone in 2003 so 10 yrs isnt quite right but its close. But to find a time when cell phones actually weren't around, I'd have to go back more than 15 yrs (1994)! When did dad get his car phone? Maybe it wasnt quite that long ago but it was close!

Well I guess the bottom line here is: call me on the house phone until further notice. We haven't decided whether we'll replace my phone or get a new plan/phones altogether. The house phone number is (405) 513-5109 and is not connected to the fax anymore but also doesn't have voicemail- I don't think.

Peyton's History Lesson

Peyton had his first history lesson today. He thought the VCR was very interesting! (the only one that works is in our bedroom and he's never used it) For some reason he thinks tapes should go in upside down. Oh well! Oh and he thought the actual tape part was pretty weird. He kept pulling it out like it was sticky. He successfully uses the DVD player all the time, he's just a little hard on the disks so I thought I'd see if he was interested in using the VCR. He has no idea that you can watch tapes on TV. It isnt hooked up to the TV.

Peyton Speaks!

I just had to tell you about the cutest thing Peyton is doing today. I noticed him doing it once or twice during the day but he really got the hang of it tonight when we were going through his train book. Every night we 'read' his train book (that is shaped like a train) and identify all the different things. He points to the tunnel, and the tracks and the light, and the baby, etc... Well tonight I asked him where the 'whatever' was and he would hold out his hands and say 'i dun nuh'! I have no idea where he picked it up but it was really really cute!! He keeps saying clear little phrases out of no where. Sometimes its a one time thing but I accidentally reinforced this one so I'm thinking it might stick. I laughed at him and tickled him when he did it so he did it for most of the book. On his birthday he said 'i love you' back to brandon. Both of us heard him or we wouldnt have believed he said it. He hasnt said it again even though brandon has tried (and tried and tried) to get him to say it again! He said something else today too but I cant remember what it was now. He does say 'oh no!' a lot too (again with the hands out in front of him). But other than that we're still trying to translate. I usually can figure out what he's saying but no one else can understand his language. He has lots of single words but phrases are new this week. He's getting there though!

Garden Update

As promised, here is the latest update on the Sweet Baby watermelon. I think it will only get to be about 5 lbs. So very cute!

The other day a bad thunderstorm rolled through and got our house. Peyton and I were at Walmart and Brandon was at work so luckily our cars weren't at home to get the damage and the house seems to be damage free but the garden was kind of shredded. It was sad... I'm still picking up fallen peppers! But it only took a day or two to turn the plants around. Everything except the corn is doing great again. Here is the hail that accumulated on the deck. Its probably 1/2 melted here.

You can't see it very well but the plants were very droopy from the hail.

Poor corn! You can see the damage here. It was literally shredded.

This is what I collected the next day, though. I always pick the tomatoes a day or two before they're really ready b/c the bugs get to them before I can if I don't.

This is the last couple of days' findings. The red peppers on the right are drying to be crushed later. I just ate the very first tomato to be ready. It was delish!

Garden Update

Time for a garden update. I dont know why the pictures are so small. Maybe its just my computer. Certain sites are showing up tiny today.

This is my wilty garden. I dont know if everything will survive the heat. The bell peppers really might not. They are all squishy now. The tomatoes would except the bugs keep getting the ripe ones. The hot peppers are flourishing!


Watermelon just keeps on growing! Only one so far but lots of vine so we'll see.

Two days' bounty. The hot peppers just keep coming! The heat is turning them ripe a little quicker than I'd like. The jalapenos are on the small side when they are ready to come out but thats okay. The quantity makes up for it!

4th of July and Tractor

Here is Peyton at the firworks show this year. He really enjoyed them! He got bored of the whole thing after a while but he was really cute in the beginning! He would hold out his hands and try to catch the fireworks as they fell.

Peyton has decided that he needs to go EVERYWHERE on his tractor! This is him on our 'walk' the other day.

Grown up Peyton and the garden

We'll compare this one to a sr. portrait one day. It occured to me that you need a point of reference to tell how big these things are. So I used my hand.

Biggest bell pepper
Small bell pepper

New budding bell pepper
Watermelon
Little jalapeno
Newly budding jalapeno
This one will be big enough to pick in a couple of days

The garden today and Peyton on his tractor

Today's picks. The flash made the cayenne look greener than they are. The one on the right is very red. The one in the middle was covered in dirt so I thought it was redder than it actually was.

I was excited to find a teeny tiny watermelon today!!! See it? Its right in the middle of the picture. Its little bitty! I have high hopes for it! It will be a challenge keeping toddler feet of of this one, though.


Here are the biggest bell peppers. They look tiny here but they're actually pretty big. Maybe 2 inches long.

Almost all of the garden. Everything except the corn and watermelon.

Peyton riding his tractor around.

Peyton watching TV on his tractor.

Garden Pictures

Mom asked for some pictures of the itty bitty bell peppers so I thought I'd update all the plants. I didnt get a full garden shot. I never think about it! You can also see my awfully dry oklahoma soil in most of the pictures! It just rained this morning and it was already dry and cracked by the afternoon.

My one lonely corn stalk is as tall as me. It has two ears growing on it!!! I'm thinking about taking the ears to the grow shop along with this picture when they are bigger. (If they get bigger!) (The lady at the grow shop told me it wasnt possible for one stalk of corn to grow alone)


The itty bitty bell pepper. This one is a couple of days old.

The biggest roma tomato. It has been big and green for a while now.

My first red cayenne pepper!! Almost ready to pick!

Small bell pepper

These are actually my biggest bell peppers and they are medium-sized. I just cant get a picture that shows how big they are.

I have bad news....

I tweet.

Well, technically, Allison at GSO Weddings tweets. Yes, I signed GSO (Glass Slipper Occasions) up for twitter and began tweeting on Friday. As much sadness as that has brought my family so far, its been great for business!! Ok so no actual clients have signed a contract yet but within 24 hours of signing up I got photos from a photographer who had been putting me off for months!!! (Thats HUGE!) The more photos I get from photographers the better my online portfolio looks and the more (potentially) clients I can get.

I know what you're thinking, though, who on earth would care that I had chicken for dinner last night? Well right now, 11 people. (which means I'm wildly unpopular in twitterland- the people I actually know on twitter (not celebrities or news outlets) have between 33 and 395 followers.) Thats what they're called- followers. You should join just to say you have followers! And actually you don't tweet about chicken. UNLESS the chicken reminded you of the fantastic chicken a client had on the menu at her wedding last month and you're going to post a link to the pictures. THATS twitter! It's just another social network but this one works great for business! I can't figure out why a person would tweet about regular life all the time. But I won't dwell on that. I need the non-business people to have twitter accounts so they will follow me and then click on the link to my website and book a wedding!

Peyton in the pool

Here are a few videos of Peyton in the pool. I accidentally recorded them on 'compress' mode so I dont know how they'll turn out. I'll take better video next time!

The first video is just of him swimming. He does a really good job already!

The next one is him blowing bubbles like his daddy.

The third one is him jumping off the ladder. I thought he was getting out of the pool the first time I saw him do it so I told him to get down. I don't know what he's yelling before he jumps, I think maybe 'down' or 'now' since I told him to 'get down now'. I don't know!

June Update

Well its time for another update. Can you believe this time next month Peyton will be TWO?? It's hard to believe! On the other hand he seems so grown up!


It's always hard to remember what we've been up to over the last month! I had a marathon of weddings this month so I've been pretty busy with work. Last weekend was the first weekend I had off in a month so I really enjoyed some downtime. The garden is doing well. Brandon and Joe have eaten a few jalapenos already and everything else is getting ready to ripen. It's going to be hard to keep up with watering this summer. Last week was in the 100's ever day. The poor garden is pretty wilty!


Speaking of heat, we decided to get a pool that the whole family could enjoy. We spent the several days in it last week and it was wonderful! Of course we all got our innagural sunburns, too! Some worse than others! If there was ever any doubt, I can promise that you can, in fact, burn skin that is under the water!


Now that Brandon is off in the afternoons and it's too hot to cool off the garage, he'll probably join us in the pool. It's also too hot to golf! One day he and his friend Ryan decided to golf in the afternoon and then cool off in the pool. The one thing they neglected to factor in was that the pool is more like bathwater temperature right now. It wasn't the refreshing swim they had planned!


Peyton and I spent a couple of days with our neighbor friends last week. I watched their twins while their regular babysitter was home with her sick child. I took a picture of them on the couch. They were so cute playing together!! The girls are 3 months older than Peyton.

Well I think we sound positively boring this month! But thats okay with me! Its too hot to do much right now and things will pick up soon!!

See you next month with Peyton's birthday recap!!

This is what summer is all about!

Here are the pictures from our very fun day in the pool! I don't know how hot it got today but it was HOT! I did catch the 7 day forecast, though, and it read: Tu - 100, We - 100, Th - 100, Fr - 100, Sa - 98, Su - 98, Mo - 98. So I"m thinking we'll be back in the pool all week! Poor Brandon had to work today. I think he called for 'updates' on the pool three times!

Soo happy!!

I'm afraid Peyton is going to think Daddy is more fun than Mom in the pool...

It is a little funny that I got NO pictures of Peyton in his life jacket! He spent 1/2 the day in it! When its just the two of us he wears the life jacket and sits in his ring! And I wonder why Daddy is more fun...! Oh well! There are more eyes and hands around when Daddy is in the pool.

This is how the pool fits in the yard. We put two stepping stones on the edge of the garden so that you can go ahead and step in the garden without hurting anything.

It kind of is nice having the garden right there, though. At dinner we had an onion on the grill and Brandon wanted to have a couple of jalapenos with it. So we just plucked a couple of jalapenos out of the garden and threw them on the grill. Doesnt get better than that!

Two things I've learned

I learned two things yesterday. First, you know those personality tests that tell you that you are a lion or a bear or a whatever? Well Brandon and I must be lizards. Second, Brandon isn't allowed to go with me to make purchases of any kind.

I'll explain... I discovered that we are lizards because, like lizards, we will continue to fill our living spaces until they burst at the seams. We've seen this in many instances. We had to buy the TV that we bought in order to fill the hole in the TV cabinet completely. There was to be no space on any side of the TV. We regularly would purchase things that didn't fit in our vehicle. It would ALMOST fit. Sometimes it was too big by even 1/4 of an inch.

That leads me to why Brandon isn't allowed to go with me to make purchases. He was already banned from going with me to purchase electronics. We can shop together but when we make our final decision, I go alone and get a store associate to help me take the thing to the car. Like the TV, we went to Walmart to buy a small, $50 pool yesterday. It was a great deal, it had a filter like I wanted and it was small enough to fit in the backyard with no problem. We have the garden, after all, so space is an issue.

Oh my.... We now have a 15 foot wide, 4 foot deep pool wedged into our backyard. Its going to be fantastic on the 100 degree days (which we've already had one or two)! But the widest place in the backyard is 16 feet.... Seriously.

Somehow the thing expanded another foot once it was actually up correctly. I'll have to add another picture today to show you how it actually fits in there.

Kristine and Joe and Kathy came to help us put it up. They were funny when they arrived- Kristine said that when they drove up she commented that she was surprised we needed help; she thought we were getting a pretty small pool. Kathy said 'she must have taken Brandon with her'!

(By the way, it sounds like I"m really complaning about the pool. I'm not. I'm just still in shock!) We can afford it- this one was actually (mathematically) a better deal than anything in the store and this way our entire family can enjoy it. The other one was really more for me and Peyton. I just wasn't prepared for a pool of this size! Actually, neither was Brandon. For two intelligent people, our spatial recognition seems to be a little off! For the record, though, I did measure the yard. But that was when we were going to buy an 8ft pool. I only measured the part of the yard that we were going to put THAT in!

Well, I'm off to enjoy! Come visit sometime!

The first jalapeno of the season

This is our very first pick from the garden! It's a little small but I wanted to pick the first peppers a little early to keep the plant going strong. It's ready to eat so off it came! I think I'll let the next batch mature a little more. I dont know- I have so many jalapenos I can probably get every stage of heat from them! Not that I even eat them...

The cayenne are getting there. They're pretty long but still green. I want those to be red when I pick them.

Oh! And the bell peppers either have mind-reading powers or an internet connection... The very day I wrote about their lack of growth on here I went out to water in the evening and they had all begun to bud! Once those things get started they're off! Already I have one that's pretty big. They are about the cutest thing when they are really small, though! All of them are, actually! Teeny tiny little versions of themselves!

Photo Update

I thought it was time for a photo update. The first picture is from swimming at Uncle Joe's parent's pool. The rest are from our family day at HeyDay. Its one of those pizza places with games and activities.



Peyton was tired after swimming! Watching daddy putt

Getting a putting lesson

Learning to drive a manual