Kelly Times Two

Please tell me that I'm not the only one who is juggling so many things to prepare for the perfect Thanksgiving feast, that a significant ingredient is inadvertently omitted. I just took a pecan pie out of the oven and thought that something didn't seem right. Then it occurred to me that I left out the Karo syrup. Oops! So now I need to make another one, and I put a fork into it to taste it. It wasn't really that bad, quite a bit more eggy, and obviously not as sweet. With pecan pie, that's kind of a good thing. If you ever want to cut back on the sweetness of one of these classic pies, I recommend leaving out some of the sugary Karo syrup. Happy cooking!

Somehow, the day is nearly over and I just found out that today is National Donut Day. One of my favorite holidays! Even though today is the first time I've ever heard of it. I just want a donut now and called Lindsey to ask her to stop by Krispy Kreme on the way home to get some hot fresh ones for us to have tomorrow for breakfast, but she was almost home. Maybe I've got everyone else wanting one now.

Sorry that I have not been keeping up with everyone's blogs lately. I've been out of town with our family for spring break and took about 600 pictures last week and decided to just create some slideshows on Smilebox to get caught up. I've been reading blogs here and there, plus balancing other good activities. Also, I've found that I spend a lot of time on Facebook these days as I've got a ton more friends there than on my blog. I prefer my blog so much more, but can stay in touch with more people, more easily through FB. These are all my excuses why this blog has kind of taken a slight backseat. Enjoy the Smilebox slideshows below when you get a chance and come back soon for more. They've also been posted on FB for the past few days.

How frustrating! I had JUST swept the decking around the pool and bagged leaves and was telling Christopher how much nicer it is to have it be clean. Then mother nature struck. It looked and sounded so much more fierce in person. I had the paper lantern hanging outside in the good and bad weather all winter long, and the hailstorm ripped it apart. Luckily both of our cars were in garages (home and work), but I'm wondering how our roof may have fared.

Check out this Texas-sized hail that I picked up from our yard today. It pounded our lawn, pool, and trees leaving a huge mess. Compare the quarter on this plate to the hail. I took a couple of videos and this is the first one. What an experience it was to have these huge balls of ice or hail pouring down forcefully from the sky onto our house and windows this afternoon! It was bizarre.

As I was backing out of the driveway tonight, I saw this squirrel pigging out while sitting on a branch of our little pecan tree. I was caught off guard because I have never seen one there. I don't think. I see squirrels all the time in the cedar elm tree and live oak trees in our backyard, but because the pecan tree is still young (for a pecan tree) it doesn't produce pecans yet. I don't know what it was munching on. Someone told us that we'll hate the squirrels when the tree starts bearing pecans. It's been in for five years or so and supposedly we still have several more years to wait. They are supposed to get huge too. I just had to grab my camera and capture this image of this content little squirrel having a grand time in our tree. It really put a smile on my face. Click on the photo to see him more closely. Ignore the dead leaves and flowers in the bed. I neglected to plant pansies this winter for the first time in a while. Next year, I won't skip the pa...

Back in the 1970's when the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter was on television, I couldn't help but falling for Vinnie Barbarino and his huge dimples and full on smile, schmoozing his high school teacher and classmates. By the time John Travolta was singing/embellishing facts, " Summer lovin, had me a blast. Summer lovin', it happened so fast " in Grease to his gang about Sandra Dee played by Olivia Newton-John, I was completely head over heals for him. Then there was Urban Cowboy , and later a movie where he played an angel, Michael. And so forth. Luckily, I never saw the Pulp Fiction movie, but I have always adored JT, not only for his roles on the big screen, but especially because he's been married to his wife, Kelly Preston, for several years and I admire that in anyone. As I heard the news this weekend that John and Kelly's 16-year-old special needs son, Jett, had suddenly died and had a seizure, hit his head on the bathtub or toilet and couldn't be...

I've already mentioned that I celebrated Michele's birthday with her last week, but because I like her so much and she's so cute, especially here in front of the fabulous pastries at La Madeleine, that's one thing I've been up lately instead of blogging, partying with my sweet friend. One day, I took a tour of Carol's new house, she's a former mission companion who lives here in Austin. Her new house has some very non-traditional features in it, such as a high school sized gymnasium, an elevator, about three kitchens, a movie theater with reclining leather seats, a massive chandelier, pictured here, and a Sistine Chapel style of painting on the entryway ceiling, and hand-made mosaic in the master bath, to name a few. Click on the photo if you'd like to get a closer look. It's huge and took a long while for the tour, and I was practically out of breath by the end. I would love to watch a football game in her home theater. They hosted a zone conferen...

Paige and her family joined us last night for dinner and family home evening and to celebrate Paige's 29th birthday. We had chicken fajitas and Streusel Berry Tart and her sweet kids, Avery and Tyson, and darling husband, Brent were all delightful guests. Paige brought me roses! Aren't they pretty? I love these. The vase was from Mandi way back when she lived here. On Thanksgiving, Michele brought me this lovely bouquet and it still looks nice, five days after she brought them. We had an awesome Turkey Day with her family and my niece, Aubrey, and Kelly's cousin, James, and Michele's family. I posted pictures on Facebook--which takes less time than blogger, but haven't added any to my blog yet. One of the best things I loved about living in The Netherlands is this lovely tradition of bringing your guests a bouquet of flowers when you showed up at their homes. My awesome friends sure do know how much I love flowers and the Dutch sentiment. Thank you so much!

Have you ever done anything on this list? First I saw this on Jenn's blog, then on Lonna's, and since I could easily just copy and paste it, it looked like a good distraction from baking and cleaning before my guests arrive in a couple of days for Thanksgiving. If you feel like it, join the fun and highlight the things that you've done on your own list or comment on some similarities or differences to my list. I'll make the highlighted things I have done in a burnt orange text. 1. Started your own blog 2. Slept under the stars 3. Played in a band 4. Visited Hawaii 5. Watched a meteor shower 6. Given more than you can afford to charity 7. Been to Disneyland 8. Climbed a mountain 9. Held a praying mantis 10. Sang a solo 11. Bungee jumped 12. Visited Paris (had a layover there only) 13. Watched a lightning storm at sea 14. Taught yourself an art from scratch 15. Adopted a child 16. Had food poisoning 17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (been to it, was unable t...

Can't wait for it to be over. I'm not looking forward to the gloating of those who voted for Barack Obama, because I know it's coming. Moving on, I'm looking forward to a beautiful autumn season with my niece, Aubrey, who is coming to visit for Thanksgiving, and Kelly's cousin, James.

Jennie posted this political cartoon making fun of Obama's philosophy, and I thought it fit in with my candy post quite nicely. Since I'm trying to shed some pounds, I'm playing with my candy this year instead of eating it. I bought what I hope will be enough for tomorrow's trick-or-treaters, then artfully displayed it for a photo session. When I opened the big bag of individual skittles packages, there was one single green one that wasn't in a package. I ate it. But nothing more! I'm amazed at my determination. Fortunately, it will all be gone tomorrow night because we get a ton of children at the door for their annual sugar fix. What ever is left over, I'm sure will be devoured by the teens who will be coming over for a party afterwards.

Sometimes when my friend, Sherrie, who lives in our neighborhood, plays tennis to keep in shape, she often calls me to see if her cute little son, Scottie, can come over for a while. When he does, I get a kick out of his silly remarks and his sweet nature. Sometimes when he comes over, we have story time and he likes to get in the bucket and I read articles from the Friend magazine with him. Isn't he adorable?

This is not something I should be blogging about, but what the heck. I have several things to upload from my brief trip to Boston, but I will do that later. Now I want to just say how bothered I was today on a four hour flight on jetBlue, nonstop to Austin, by this woman in front of me who kept passing gas in my general direction. I was so disgusted and trapped by her fumes as we we both had window seats and she was directly in front of me. It was sickening and I was kind of worried that the guy in the aisle seat next to me might think it was me. But she kept going after it. It was so sick. She also had dirty hair and I would be halfway asleep, then another bomb would make it back my way. Finally, I decided to sort of kick into her seat to somehow try to convey that her fumes were offensive. I hate to be rude, but I didn't know any other way to combat this, and we were barely over Ohio at that point. A while later, she blasted another one, and I totally kicked into her seat again a...

Even though we live three or four hours from the coast, the hurricanes that hit the gulf have some impact on Austin. The schools in our district are closing two hours early tomorrow, and the grocery stores have been packed today. Everyone is stocking up and getting ready. I'm going out to lunch with friends tomorrow--and am not too worried. But I've got all kinds of food and necessities, just in case. The kids are psyched that they get to have their Friday weekend fun start a bit early. I'm not expecting things to go badly from Hurricane Ike, but if so, we'll be ready. Keep your fingers crossed! Christopher thought it would be interesting if there was also a Hurricane Mike, so it could be Mike & Ike. Edited to add: I just uploaded this picture of the roses I bought for myself at HEB for $10. I didn't want to make a new post just for that.

About nine days ago, I added a counter on my blog. I know that a lot of people look at my blog, but have never kept track of how many. So Kelly added it for me and I had him start it off at 5,000, knowing that in the past 24 months when my blog began, I've easily had that many lurkers and actual people who make comments. In just nine days, my counter is already up past 6,000, so I guess I was getting some traffic here and there. I feel validated and want to say thank you! Another new icon you might have noticed is a little printer icon next to the comments place, where you can print out any particular post. It's an HP printer thing, and I also added it to Heidi's recipe blog (with her consent) to be able to print out specific posts. I am in the process of formatting my blog to print it into a book through blurb.com and it's been so enjoyable to look over the comments (as I'm editing it for line spacing, how much to put on each page, and so forth) reading the l...

Tonight I thought I would be a supportive friend and visit my girlfriend, RuthAnn, at her new job as a waitress at California Pizza Kitchen. The kids and I went there for dinner tonight and we also took a friend of Lindsey's along. The food was good, the service was excellent, of course, and I was happily prepared to give my buddy a generous tip and thank her before we left the restaurant. Jokingly before she brought the bill, I told her that Corey, Lindsey's friend from school, would wash dishes in the restaurant's kitchen to pay for our meal. The joke was on me when RuthAnn delivered our check and I reached for my wallet and remembered that it was on my desk at home. I had been making reservations for our summer vacation plans and grabbed it from my purse as I was booking accommodations for July. How embarrassing. RuthAnn and I laughed about it, then she went through her apron pocket and scraped together $51 in cash to cover the ticket. She asked me what I would have done...

10. On Mother's Day, returning from my niece's graduation in Oklahoma, I brought home some excess cargo--my mother ! Mom flew to Oklahoma for a last-minute trip to support Jessica, then came back with us, never saying how long she'd stay. She ended up staying for a week and a half then flew home--we had some fun, watched a few movies, went to some favorite restaurants and shops, and did one shift with the Wilkinson quintuplets . 9. Tile issues with our pool --I panicked when I saw what appeared to be the wrong color being installed, so asked the crew to stop, remove all the tile from half way around the pool. It turns out the number matched the color I ordered, but apparently there was a large variation in color that I had not expected. My one little six-inch tile sample looked nothing like what was getting installed. Long story short, I now have the same tile, but with my supervision to make sure it was alternated evenly. I still like the finished look, but it's not wh...

Christopher's first day of kindergarten, on August 18, 2003. Our shrubs in front of the house have grown as much as he has since then. My brother is a software engineer and yesterday he emailed me and the other three sisters (he's the only boy) and told us about something he and his tech-geek friends discovered. It's very cool in a way, and kind of creepy on the other hand. Check it out. Click here , then type in your address. Hit enter, then in the little white window, click street view to see a picture of your house and neighborhood. It's so bizarre to me. Apparently Google went around with a 360 degree camera strapped atop cars and took video of houses and neighborhoods all over the country. I looked up my sisters', brother's, in-laws' addresses and saw their homes as plain as day. Our home is kind of blurry, so I dug up this old one with a cute little redhead in it. I saw the boat in the driveway of Kelly's parents' home, plus our old Jeep that...

Make a scrapbook - it's easy! This was my first Smilebox slide show to make and it's only five pages long, and I couldn't figure out how to add pages to last for the entire song. Be sure to listen for the Dixie Chicks when they say "bluebonnets" on the last page of our adventure. (Tip: The last page has a tag that said Adventure 2008.) After that, enjoy the rest of the Chicks' cool tune. If you are an expert at Smilebox, or smart enough to know how to add pages, feel free to leave a comment teaching me your tricks. Thanks!