the bird and the bee

If you know Sarah, you know that she was having some back pain over the holiday break. Poor thing - I'm pretty sure she spent almost 2 weeks on vicodin and bed rest. Seeing as how she wasn't exactly, how can I say, "productive" during this time frame, it was extra special to get a Christmas card from her.

Especially when I opened it and discovered that she *may* have written it while heavily medicated. (Although maybe not - she IS pretty funny even when she is not medicated.) But I am going to share the text of the card with you and let you decide...

Bee & Bird,

I think of friends when I think of Christmas cards and when I think of friends, Larry and Rachel pop into my mind… (aka the Bee and the Bird, or Bee and Bird, or the Bird and the Bee, or Bird and Bee.) Larry is “Bird” because: 1.) Rachel is Bee and “Bird” goes with “Bee.” and 2.) the only other tall, white, magical white guy on this planet who also has the first name “Larry” has the last name “Bird.” Does he spell his name like that? I don’t know. I do know that Dale and I (heart) the both of you and we also (heart) Blossom. Aw, Bee, Bird and Blossom! How cute! 3 B’s. B³. The two humans have a non-human nickname and the non-human has a flower nickname. (or a human TV sitcom character. Or a cartoon character name.)

P.S. I drew that. Dale thought it was part of the card. Ha!

Needless to say, this was probably my favorite Christmas card this year. (Not to hurt anyone else's feelings, sheesh. But nobody else included a hand-drawn masterpiece in theirs.) (And if you didn't get a Christmas card from her, don't feel bad. She was in a bad way. Plus, I made her red velvet truffles so she probably felt obligated.)

So anyway, Larry - the Magical White Guy (MWG) - now has another nickname... the Bird. Now you have the rest of the story.

Whatchamacallit Wednesday

Do you know what I miss about Myspace? Surprisingly, it is NOT all of the pictures of people in their bathrooms. You know, the ones that look like THIS:

(photo credits: I googled "typical myspace picture" and this was one of many... I do not know this girl and hope that no harm came her and her 18 year old self due to this scantily clad photo.)

My sister, "G", came to visit a few summers ago and we went downtown with Sarah. G and Sarah taught me how it is done...G did one of herself in the mirror, then Sarah took one of all 3 of us.
No, I do not miss the mirror photos. What I DO miss is being able to post random nuggets of sunshine on my friend's pages. Face it, facebook just isn't as easy. For example, if I wanted to give you encouragement on your diet, I might give you this as a comment:
And when you were celebrating your 7th wedding anniversary and your husband forgot about it and tried to make it up to you by buying you a new blender, I might leave you this comment: (courtesy of Anne Taintor... who you will most likely see much more from)
And if your team didn't lose the starting quarterback after the first 5 plays and won another National Championship, I would have commented:

(I will go on the record as saying I think Colt is a class act. Gotta love that kid. And I don't have any photo credits for 2 of the pictures/images used above. If they are yours, please let me know and I will be happy to give you some love.)

So anyway, I decided that since I no longer use myspace, I will use my blog as the new outlet for these random picture/comment/whatchamacallit thingees. and I will do it on Wednesdays. Because, well... why not? I wanted to come up with a catchy little name but couldn't really think of anything, hence the "whatchamacallit." If you have an idea, let me know.

good advice

If you’ve ever worked in an office of any sort, you’re probably familiar with the “who moved my cheese” or “the Fred factor”, or “Good to Great” or “the fish philosophy” type of books. I actually like that kind of stuff. I mean what’s wrong with leaders wanting their people to be the best they can be? At my current job, we use the Gallup Strengths Finder. Your first day of work, you are given the book and asked to take the Strenghsfinder test, which is actually really nice since the first day at a new job can be really awkward when you don’t have anything to do and don’t really know what you are SUPPOSED to do! So anyway, the book you are given has a code on the inside of it and it can only be used once – so for instance, you could borrow and read my book, but you can’t take the test since I’ve already used the code. I wish you could, as I LOVE this instrument. I have found it to be very accurate in describing people. The idea is that we all have strengths, and instead of focusing on things we aren’t good at, we should be placed in an environment that allows our strengths to thrive. My top 5 strengths are: Developer – Maximizer – Empathy – Positivity – Includer. (So I’m basically ‘perfect” (lol) for my job of developing new teachers into being the best they can be, while being empathetic and positive as they experience struggles.) Here are brief descriptions of the 34 themes. Wow, I totally went off on a tangent there.

My point of this blog was to share some good advice from one of these other types of books. My current coordinators are amazing people. They truly treat us as PEOPLE first, EMPLOYEES second. That can be difficult to do. They had both mentioned a book called The Four Agreements as something that influenced their leadership style, so I asked if I could borrow it. Well, I didn’t really care for the book. It’s kind of written through a hippie-spiritual-healing crystal type lens. However, I LOVE the four agreements. I’m sure you can find them all in the bible somewhere, because, well – obviously. Anyway, I wanted to share them with you.

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don't Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don't Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you
can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment,
self-abuse and regret.

I have them printed out (and matted nicely on two different colors of cardstock) and hanging in my office. They are good reminders. I know that I drive the MWG crazy with them sometimes – especially the “don’t make assumptions” one… we’ll be in the car and somebody cuts us off and he gets mad, and I’m all, “Assume the best! For all you know, they are rushing to the hospital to be at their dying mother’s bedside and just really need to get there in a hurry!” I’m sure it gets annoying, but he is a good sport. Anyway, do with them what you will.

What I've been up to

Funny how things start to pile up if you don't blog about them fast enough. I have lots of great pictures and recommendations about where to go look at Christmas lights, but I guess I 'll have to wait on that. However, you don't think I would really neglect to post pictures from Christmas, do you? Here is a rather LONG post to tell you how we celebrated baby Jesus' birthday:

We started with cheering the Longhorns to victory at the Big 12 Championship game in Dallas. (Yes, my shirt has bevo with a santa hat. I looked EVERYWHERE for a Raider Red with a santa hat shirt, and they don't exist. Plus, look how cute we looked in matching shirts.)
We spent several nights driving around looking at lights, looking at the "snow" and giant Macy's Christmas Tree in the Domain and anything else Christmas-y we could think of. You'll have to wait until next December to see those pictures and hear about how much better North Austin was at "Keeping Austin Weird" than the rest of the city was.

Larry and I decided that we would start a new "Christmas pedicure" tradition, so here he is in his massage chair. Real men aren't afraid of a nice pedi.
I spent hours (literally) in the kitchen, baking. Loaves of pumpkin bread are pictured.
We spent Christmas Eve doing the Mobile Loaves and Fishes truck - I helped make the 140 sandwiches while Larry loaded the truck.
It was c-c-c-cold that night! Therefore, once we got home from church, I made myself a nice chocolate peppermintini and sat by the fire.
Blossom got a new rubber chicken for Christmas. She tends to destroy any sort of plush toy, so I was excited that this chicken was made out of tough rubber. Here she is playing with it:
And here she is about 5 minutes later, licking her lips after chewing off every single one of the chicken's toes. (If you look closely at the picture, you can see the toes scattered amongst the blanket.) The new chicken lasted *maybe* 20 minutes before we threw it away so that she wouldn't swallow any tiny pieces of rubber. Guess we will have to stick with rawhide.
As usual, Larry did a great job on my gifts this year - he went with 2 themes: Tech and Happy Hour, 2 of my favorite things. I got a bottle of my favorite "special occasion only" wine, a new little corkscrew set, and gift cards to 6 of the places we frequent. (The case of Shiner was a gift from our neighbors for dog-sitting their pooch for a week. It was just too heavy to move.) The Tech gifts consisted of Alamo Bowl tickets, a purse made out of a football with the Double T embroidered on it, and earrings and a bracelet made out of red/black/white guitar picks bedazzled with shiny bits.
Here is a close-up of the bracelet:
Larry and I were supposed to head to Lubbock on Christmas day, but they got snow and ice and the roads were dangerous, so we didn't go. I was sad, but we had a nice meal at the IHOP and took a nap. We went the next day instead - Larry is so sweet... he drove me all the way there just to make sure it was safe. We got there at 2pm, visited with my family for a bit, then we took him to the airport to catch his 5pm flight! While there, my parents gave him a new windsock for the backyard. (He loves windsocks.) This giant pepper is named "Pepe."
Unfortunately, my camera battery died right after that picture, so I didn't get ANY of my precious nieces and nephews. I used my mom's camera and am waiting for her or my sister to upload them into Shutterfly or Snapfish. (hint, hint....)

Here I am wearing all of my Tech garb right before the Alamo Bowl. You wouldn't believe how many compliments I got on that purse!
After the Tech win:
(No comment on the whole Mike Leach firing. I am very upset with the Administration. Regardless of the outcome, I don't feel that things were handled in a manner becoming of a Division I school.)

All in all, we had a blessed,wonderful Holiday season. I am amazed that I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by the most incredible man, family and friends. Looking forward to seeing what 2010 has in store!