Shopping in Canton, Texas

This past Thursday I attended the "world's largest flea market" in Canton, Texas. It is a monthly event that starts the weekend of the first Monday of the month...did you get that? Friday would've been the preferred day to go (not as crowded and all the vendors are there as opposed to Thursday when not all the vendors are there), but my M-I-L had to work on Friday night (she's a geriatric nurse, 3rd shift), so Thursday, it was.

We pulled the children around in their red wagon (see previous post of the wagon pictures) so they could take breaks from walking. There were still many vendors to check out and we did lots of walking. The children looked like royalty, seated in their wagon filled with pillows. Jerry bought Gary a toy bell which he rang constantly. It looked like he was announcing our arrival by ringing that bell.

I found some great bargain buys. There were a bunch of tables that had items for only $1.00, but when I went to pay the vendor, he told me that they've been reduced to 50 cents each! Wow! I've discovered that my children love corn dogs. Please, no remarks on what's in a hot dog, thanks. Anyway, they only ate a small portion.

Canton is about a 2.5-hour drive from where we live. By evening, we drove to Gladewater to dine with Larry. Gladewater was about an hour away from Canton. Needless to say, we were all tired by the time we came home. Tired, but happy!

I just want to take a moment to share what's on my mind and heart. Kristi, one of my brother's dear friends, has an almost 2-year-old daughter named Eva who just had a tumor the size of a baseball removed from her chest (behind her heart, close to her spine). Eva underwent surgery in the form of a thorocotomy (incision on the right side of her lower chest) yesterday morning and based on the blog reports, all went well. Here is her blog if you wish to find out more details. Please drop a note of encouragement/support; I'm sure she would appreciate it. No parent should have to go through this.

I'm too choked up to write anymore. Will continue this later.

A Valentine Experience

We enjoyed the lovely 70-degree weather on Valentine's Day. I took the children out on a wagon ride (good exercise for mommy, too). I thought my parents might enjoy some photos of the children, so I grabbed my camera. Here's what I had to go through to get a good shot:

Gary shows he is not in the mood for picture-taking. Kari wants to know when he will stop crying.


Gary drinks his milk eagerly and looks as if he's saying, "Don't rush me." Kari looks to say, "Mommy, how long do I have to pose in this wagon?"


Finally! Here is a great Valentine picture of the children which I used to make a homemade Valentine card for Larry. I just got a glimpse of how a professional children's photographer feels. My hat's off to you!

The children enjoyed their wagon ride. We stopped by their Uncle Lee's place and walked by their pond. It was breezy, but very sunny; a wonderful day to be alive. Through proflowers.com, I sent Larry a bouquet of flowers to his workplace yesterday. He received them and said they brightened up his area.

I made a nice Valentine's Dinner: stir-fry garlic shrimp, garlic bread, orange-glazed pork loin chops and chocolate chip ice cream pie with a chocolate rice-krispie crust. I was trying a new recipe with the pork chops. Larry said that they were tender and juicy. He ate every last bite. Then he lovingly told me not to use that recipe again on him. I guess he doesn't care for the citrus flavor on his meat. I'm glad he tells me things like that because if he hadn't, I probably would've made it again and again. He enjoyed everything else on the menu. His favorite, of course, was the ice cream pie.

Side note: I was a bit peeved with UPS; although I paid for 2-day shipping and Larry's Valentine present was supposed to arrive on Wednesday, Feb. 13th, it didn't arrive until Friday, Feb. 15th. I already wrote UPS an intense letter of my disappointment in their service. Instead of delivering the package to my address, they delivered it to a business establishment. I am mystified by this.

After dinner, we presented our Valentine cards to each other. The children enjoyed ripping up their envelopes. They are also fascinated by the heart-shaped mylar balloons around the table. Then Larry presented me with a beautiful diamond heart necklace! The man is spoiling me!

It's not just the jewelry; it's the thought behind giving me the jewelry. He works hard to provide for our family, loves our children to death and is sensitive to our needs. He's building a house for us and he does that after he's finished working for his company for the day. He's not perfect, but he shows our love to us in so many ways and I feel very blessed by that. This paragraph sounds like something I should write for Father's Day, but like so many other days, moments of appreciation shouldn't be devoted to just one day out of the year.

It has been a good week altogether. I don't celebrate my birthDAY. I celebrate my birthMONTH. Looking forward to more celebrating!!

Happy Birthday to Me!

This past Tuesday, I celebrated my birthday. We need not go into how OLD I am, OK? I married late, had children late, and I just feel ancient sometimes. I think children have a way of zapping the energy out of you, which causes you to feel old. Does that ever happen to you?

OK, where was I? Oh yes, birthday. Everyone was at work, so I didn't have any babysitters and Larry was coming home that night after work. It was raining buckets that morning and early afternoon. I decided I still wanted to go out and celebrate by myself, so I got the children and myself ready and we headed off to the larger town of Nacogdoches, about a 45-minute drive from my house.

As we approached the town, the sun started shining through the gray clouds. There was a new shopping center I wanted to check out there, but first, I had to satisfy a growling stomach. We went to this Szechuan restaurant. Since Larry's not a big fan of Chinese food, I thought this was the right time for me to go. It was nearly 3 p.m., it wasn't crowded, and the lunch meals are usually cheaper than the dinner meals. Perfect.

There were a few people in the bar section watching a soap opera, but there was no one in the dining area. Kari and Gary had ample room to walk around and stretch their legs. Kari liked the fried wontons and the coconut drink. Gary enjoyed the wonton soup and fried rice. Their General Tso's Chicken was very good. It was worth coming here again and checking out the other entrees.

I enjoyed celebrating my birthday with my children. I only wished Larry was here, although I don't know what he would order in this Chinese restaurant. He is such a finicky eater.

Thought you might want to know what my fortune cookie message said.


Hmmm...ever had a fortune cookie message that really did come true or was it it so generic that it SEEMED like it came true? Just food for thought. No pun intended...hahahaha.

After checking out a few shops, I wanted to beat the afternoon traffic and make it in time for Larry's arrival. Since Larry didn't have time to cook, he brought home a delicious pizza from a local pizzeria. Lately, we've been checking out pizzerias and rating them. So far we like the one in Longview called Pietro's. Yummy!

Larry presented me with a beautiful amethyst necklace. I was so touched by his thoughtfulness. Amethyst is my birthstone. Last year, Larry didn't have a job, and he felt bad that he couldn't give me anything. Money is still tight with our house-building and switching from a two-income family to one-income, but the Lord has been good to us. So have our families.

Perhaps I've reached an age where I don't really want much...just good health, being surrounded by family and friends and building a better relationship with God (praying more, reading more, exercising the spiritual self) so I can be a good example to those around me, especially to my children.

Larry's mother plans to throw a small luncheon party for me this Sunday after church. It'll be family only, a small intimate affair. Knowing what a great cook she is, I look forward to sampling what's on the menu.

I'll continue this later and let you know how my Valentine's Day went. I need sleep!

Reflection Time: Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder - Ha!

Excerpts from "If You Wanna Be Happy" by Jimmy Soul

If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
So for my personal point of view
Get an ugly girl to marry you

A pretty woman makes her husband look small
And very often causes his downfall
As soon as he married her and then she starts
To do the things that will break his heart

But if you make an ugly woman your wife
You'll be happy for the rest of your life
An ug-a-ly woman cooks meals on time
And she'll always give you peace of mind

If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
So for my personal point of view
Get an ugly girl to marry you

(Sax solo)

Don't let your friends say you have no taste
Go ahead and marry anyway
Though her face is ugly, her eyes don't match
Take it from me, she's a better catch

Spoken:
Say man!
Hey baby!
I saw your wife the other day!
Yeah?
Yeah, an' she's ug-leeee!
Yeah, she's ugly, but she sure can cook, baby!
Yeah, alright!

If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
So for my personal point of view
Get an ugly girl to marry you

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, that song comes to mind. When I sing it to my husband and tell him that he's going to be happy for the rest of his life, he just shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

I have this terrible habit of getting the children ready first and then getting myself ready last. This is not good if I am under a time crunch (i.e., going to church) because I end up looking like a well-dressed person who just woke up. I do have everyone's clothes laid out the night before, but for some reason I feel the need to try on several outfits until I'm finally happy with one or run out of time - whichever comes first.

I used to have this friend (I don't know where she is now) who looked beautiful in anything. She could wear sackcloth and still looked sexy because of her cute little figure. She never styled her hair, wore just lip gloss and she could make heads turn. Did I mention that she never exercised, could eat like a pig and still have a small figure? How we became friends is beyond me.

When I was single, I used to go to the ladies' gym twice a week after work, had my haircut every 2-3 months, and bought a lot of nice clothes. To quote an old friend of mine, "I used to be quite a dish." Ah, what happened to that lovely lady?

I think she's paid too much attention to the children and to the house that she's stopped taking care of herself. Now, before you overreact, I'm not talking about good hygiene habits going down the drain. I'm talking about eating better. Exercising more. Being more organized. Doing better with my housecleaning. What's that word? Oh yes...I need to be more DISCIPLINED.

As I work to improve my children's minds and help build their character, I need to work on taking care of myself. I'm not getting any younger and this is the only body I have to work on. I suppose you could say that this entry is about trying to improve myself - physically, mentally and spiritually. Speaking of spiritual, I haven't been praying as much as I should because I always chalk it up to being busy, but praying brings so much peace to my soul. I need that. I miss that.

Still a Hopeless Romantic

After the children are asleep and I finish straightening up the kitchen and living room, I look forward to my mommy time. This time it included watching a movie. We never seem to find the time to go to a movie theater nowadays so we usually wait for the DVD. Larry was in Gladewater tonight so I had my alone time.

I watched "The Lake House" starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock and knew I had to watch it again. Talk about chemistry, talk about not settling for less, talk about waiting for the right one...ah, the sheer romance of it all. The trick is not to over-analyze the time/space continuum, but to sit back and enjoy the fantasy love story created through correspondence, though the correspondents are living 2 years apart from each other.

Interestingly enough, it had a reference to Jane Austen's book, "Persuasion," of which I saw its movie version. It is a story about waiting for each other. I enjoyed that movie, too.

It was just nice to be lazy for awhile and enjoy a good chick flick. *sigh*

So, Have You Missed Me?

I know, it's been awhile since you've heard from me. Christmas decorating, holiday shopping, wrapping, visiting friends, attending birthday parties and doing some entertaining at home and voila, we're near the end of December. December has also been a treat because Larry's service calls would send him to a town closer to our house, so we would end up seeing him more during the weeknights. It's been nice.

We had a great Christmas. Our children are spoiled...um, I mean well-loved. Just when I had the house cleaned up, along comes the unwrapping of presents, the "assembly required" toys, and the chaos of children scrambling from one toy to another while parents looked for batteries and tools for assembly. It was fun!

It was my first Christmas without my parents, and it was hard. I miss Mom and Dad's cooking, but Larry's family made quite a feast and everything was delicious. I've been doing too much eating lately, and I feel quite chunky.

Prior to Christmas day, I was invited to a Christmas Eve Brunch by the mother of Larry's old high school friend. Larry could not attend because he still had to work. I had a great time as I got to meet new people and Larry's high school friend, Lenny, has a sister with 3 adorable children ages 2, 5 and 8. They were very nice to Kari and Gary who enjoyed playing with them. Lenny and his wife, Melody, have a son who's a month younger than Gary. We will be attending his 1-year birthday party next week.

The weather has been quite cool lately. The highs would be in the upper 50's to low 60's and the lows would be in the upper 20's to 30's. It's hard to believe we're nearing 2008. This year of 2007 has definitely been a year of change for me. I am thankful to have a loving husband and family. I feel blessed by my children.

By the way, I now have a Facebook profile. I signed up when a friend told me she had posted some pictures of her children and the only way to view them was to register. Then after I registered, I saw all these longtime friends who also have Facebook platforms and I connected with them immediately. Then I ran into all these neat applications that you could download (i.e., poking, sending a gift, designing your own graffiti on a wall) and I became an application junkie. Well, I still have a few things to pack before we go to Gladewater this weekend. I'll try to connect again soon.

Gary Is a Year Old!

Dec. 6, 2006
1:17 p.m.
20.6 inches long
8 lbs., 10 oz.







Our baby boy is now a year old. My, how time flies. Kari is a pro at singing "Happy Birthday" to Gary; she's been singing it for 3 days now. My mother-in-law, Jerry, went all out and had Gary's birthday dinner at her house. She made quite a feast: Smithfield ham, fried rice, pancit (someone gave her a recipe for this popular Filipino dish), kielbassa sausage, yeast rolls, chicken wings, vegetable medley, mashed potatoes and deviled eggs (contributed by yours truly). I volunteered to do clean-up since she worked so hard on the memorable meal.

Jerry also made Gary's birthday cake using the pan shaped in the form of the number "1." Homemade fudge frosting atop a chocolate cake...decadent.

Lolo and Lola called from Virginia to wish Gary a happy birthday and were sad that they couldn't be there to celebrate with him. They're both feeling a bit under the weather. They already sent Gary's birthday present: a Leap Frog spin wheel teaching the alphabet and the animals associated with the particular alphabet letter in musical form.

Gary received many toys and a couple of outfits from his aunt, uncle, cousins and grandparents.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy. We love you so much!