important issues

i've appropriately titled this post important issues because we are going to tackle some important issues here today. important issues like, why do i suddenly love cream cheese and want to eat it on everything at every meal? why? can anyone out there tell me why?

there are a few delish sandwich shops around these parts and while my mom was down last week, we picked up sandwiches from one of my favorites, my favorite muffin & bagel. i like to indulge myself in the turkey and havarti that they have there. turkey, havarti, lettuce, tomato, a shmear of cream cheese on whole wheat and served with a pickle. in other words, it's to die for. never-mind the fact that 3/4 of the way through my sandwich i noticed that they had forgotten the havarti. i didn't even care, i was too love-drunk from the cream cheese. then a few weeks ago i had this OTHER sandwich at this other great place here, hester's and it TOO had cream cheese on it. whole wheat bread, cream cheese, tomatoes, sprouts, cucumbers... i have to stop telling you about it or i'll have to go drive to hester's.

lindsay, don't worry, BOTH of these places are on the agenda/menu for your visit. i hope you like cream cheese.

so today, i made my own little turkey and havarti with cream cheese on my toasted sandwich flat bread with some spring mix lettuce on top and it was good to the last drop. now it's snack time and i want a piece of toast. with cream cheese. i've opened pandora's cream cheese box! i'm gonna force myself to settle for an apple, lest i turn into cream cheese.

important issue #2. air purifiers.

do they work? are they awesome or not awesome? our bedroom doesn't get the best of ventilation and gets the least amount of airflow from our fab, new a/c. it's really not a big problem, except that sometimes it just feels stale in there. we run the ceiling fan to keep life moving in there, but it still doesn't feel fresh and wonderful. not to mention that my mom nicely told me that my house still smells a little like old lady. excellent. i knew it did when we bought it, but i was hoping that our own pettijohn scent had taken the granny smell hostage! i guess not yet. i did refresh my plug-ins since we had that conversation. but it did feed the fire for the hot topic of "to purify or not to purify." i want to know if they are as amazing as they claim to be, especially since they are upwards of $300. does anyone have any thoughts that they can share?

important issue #3. christmas commercials.

are they as abundant where you live as they are where i live? holy moly. i don't EVER remember them starting so heavily, this early. then again, in fall seasons past i was always working retail and rarely had time to watch tv. every other commercial is christmas-y and i'm wondering if they just decided to skip thanksgiving all together this year. i sure hope not, 'cause i can almost taste the sweet potatoes and the turkey. perhaps they air them more heavily in corpus because they know what a stretch it will be to get people to start thinking christmas when it's 83 degrees outside. who else is now thinking about thanksgiving dinner instead of christmas commercials? me too! glad i could get the taste buds going. we're having our thanksgiving at the pettijohn's this year which translates into TONS of amazing food... and then after we eat, they lose me to a food induced coma.

man, i wonder how we could incorporate cream cheese into thanksgiving dinner.

crafty goodness

remember how i know this way, mega talented girl named melis?

yes, she is STILL way, mega talented :)

she just came out with these new super cutie wall prints that are just begging to make your wall a little bit more happy and delightful. me? well, i have my eye on this one...

oh, and fyi, don't even think about stealing this cute image. it's {copyright by melimba 2009} which means it's not for the taking. if you want one, you can just get one right here for your very own self.

but there are even more in her shop that are just as cute. we already know i am a sucker for her cards. in fact, i just placed my thanksgiving and christmas order last week. let's face it, the cutest part of my gifts this year will definitely be the gift tags! the great part is that mike loves melis' goodies as much as i do, so he always says, "shop away!" ok, not really. but he says it with his eyes... and his smile when he sees the smile on MY face when my goodies arrive :) he's cool like that.

you can head over to melis' blog and try to win one if you want. who doesn't love to be a winner? and while you're there, stay a while. she's super fun. oh, and if you want to check out her new fabric line {she's amazing like that} and other crafty delights, she has a webpage too. it's www.melimba.com

and speaking of fun...checkity check this out. i happened upon this a few nights ago and will most definitely be checking in each day.

she has the cutest holiday craft ideas, and just cute ideas in general. she also gives step by step directions for those of us that are creatively de-clined and need a little extra lovin'. in case you missed the link, here it is again.

who ARE all these talented people?! aren't you glad they're around? me too!

now go, friends! go be crafty and go shop with melimba! you won't be sorry you did :)

a camping we will go...

well, lucky for you, blogging just trumped my jaunt to heb due to the monsooning rains that have just arrived in corpus. let me just tell you how thankful i am that we just got our trees trimmed. with our corpus storms come those CRAZY winds and our trees are out there waving their hands in the air like they just don't care and i'm pretty relieved all that extra weight is off of them... or else i fear there would be a repeat of the day the tree fell down.

this weekend was the first annual ownby family camping trip. it was a BLAST! we just had so much fun. there was lots of planning that went into the trip. we synchronized our calendars and blocked off the date way-back-when in august so as to save the weekend. and ever since then, e-mails have been flying back and forth with meal ideas, packing lists, locations, driving times, etc... so this weekend it all came to pass and it was just as much fun as we all imagined it would be...times two.

we had 2 campsites out at lake somerville state park - birch creek. it was BEAUTIFUL! the lake was gorgeous, the weather was wonderful and everything was green and happy after all the rain. between our two campsites, we had 6 tents, 5 coolers, 4 cars, 1 dog, 8 kids and 8 adults. that right there is the recipe for fun. and a little bit of chaos too :)

we arrived friday night, pitched the tents and got our hotdogs over the fire in a hurry followed by some tasty s'mores.

i am really loving the abundance of head-lamps {and mike's crazy eyes} in this photo. camping fashion at its finest.

it was getting chilly and before long, we were all ready to snuggle into our tents. which were not very warm, by the way. i think it's the whole "nylon fending off the elements" feature. a few of us woke up at the righteous hour of 5:30 a.m. on saturday morning. just because. so we saw it as the perfect time to start our fire, start the coffee and the breakfast tacos. i am so glad we were up so early, because check out this BREATHTAKING sunrise over the lake! glory be. isn't it amazing? and yes, this view was from our campsites!

saturday was filled with napping, walks, adventuring, fishing, swimming and fun galore. the kids and mike were the only crazy ones who dared to get in the freezing cold lake. james did a lot of fishing...

and lilah saw it as her personal mission to retrieve the bobbers. lilah, that is so helpful. thank you. can we attribute the fact that no one caught a fish, to YOU?

the butterflies were abundant! they were just beautiful and were everywhere!! i always enjoy seeing the evidence of God's creativity :)

we ended the night with a family feast of hobo pouches and the most delish peach cobbler ever. even more miraculous was the fact that i made it and mike cooked it. we make quite the team. before bed, we had a "variety show" and each family performed a skit or two. oh the laughs. it was great fun.

sunday morning we had our pancakes and smokies, then broke camp while "the cousins" ran around like indians some more. in a perfect world, i would have snagged a picture of each one of the kids. but really, trying to wrangle them all together very much resembles herding cats. i managed to capture everyone except for rachel and kathryn. rats. better luck next year!

the trip was filled with smiles, lots of laughter, a ton of orange soda, loads of fun and no make up {consider that your warning} whatsoever ...

baby joe was our tiniest camper and he's such a charmer. i wish i got to see him EVERY day!

this is what a delicious campfire meal looks like! the most tasty hobo pouches i have EVER had. hands down..

this little lady burned more calories during the camping trip than the rest of us combined. 1 dog + 7 kids = more walks than you could think possible. pair that with 2 afternoons of swimming, we STILL have one sleepy pooch.

here's where the magic happened. our "home base."

campsite #11 & #13...thanks for all the memories!

here's looking forward to next year!

dear laura ashley...

when we moved into the house, we had two bathrooms that needed total makeovers. as you have already seen, one is completed. check! we've kinda been avoiding the "guest bathroom" because of the abundance of icky wallpaper that covers every surface in there.

here's a little reminder of the beauty.

you'll be relieved to know that they had matching curtains AND a matching shower curtain too. because if a little laura ashley is good, then a WHOLE LOT of laura ashley can only be better. right? oh, so very wrong.

it's very unlike me to not care about something so ugly. in fact, i care so little that when we have people over, i allow them to use that bathroom. happily. i did put a b&bw grapefruit handsoap in there so that while they're washing their hands, the citrus scent can whisk them away to a more beautiful, less laura ashley place in their mind. i'm not sure how that works out for them. i would imagine not very well.

house-guests are coming, so the inevitable became pressing. this weekend we started to tackle the beast.

but first, we had to clean out the sink.

give me a break, harley. do you have ESP and just know where we're going to be working next and so that's where you take your 1,894,875th nap of the day? are you good for anything?

we armed ourselves with our DIF spray and our paper tiger and went to town. after a few hours, our bathtub was full of laura ashley delight.

and our walls were left looking like this:

lovely.

and so, my darling, handy husband has been skimming all the walls with dry-wall mud making them look smooth, beautiful and like new. next will come priming and then painting. our cute new shower curtain arrived, the towels are ready, we have all our new hardware - the finish line is in sight! best part is? LAURA ASHLEY IS IN THE TRASH-CAN!

bye, laura. nice knowing you.

the whole process makes the job of stripping the wallpaper in the kitchen look even less appealing. our kitchen is much bigger than our little bathroom, therefore it is going to take a whole lot more time. the good news is that the wallpaper in far more tolerable, so it can wait a while longer. the thing about buying a fixer-upper? there is never a lack of fixing-up :)

want an update on the new job? i've officially had 3 days at work and the verdict is in: i love it. my little readers are just too cute and i enjoy seeing their excitement when they master something new when that light-bulb comes on and you can see that they've got it. it's great! highlight of last week: one of our little guys wanted to take his spelling cards home because, "i want to show them to my mom so that she can be proud of me." that's about when i wanted to let the tears flow like rain. it warms my soul when i see kids strive to make their parents proud. i know she will be! it's such a rewarding 3 hours of my day.

ownby family camping extravaganza 2009 is just days away. let the fun begin!

guess what?!

i got a job!

i know, i know! it is really exciting!!

last week i made it my mission to clean out our filing cabinets and to sort through all of our office-y stacks. i was making great time until i got to my education binder that was chock full of all my lesson plans, evaluations, pictures, "love notes" and kindergarten stuff. all of a sudden i settled into the couch and flipped through it all, page by page. all the fun memories and emotions of student teaching and just teaching in general came flooding back and by the time i was finished, i wanted to run to the nearest elementary school. {i would have settled for riding my bike, but i still don't have one.}

since mike and i agreed on no full-time jobs, i sent out my feelers for something part time. i applied in one district for substituting, but nothing has come of that yet. on saturday, i happened upon a learning center that was looking for a certified teacher for a part-time reading teacher/tutor. I AM YOUR GIRL! so, i had an interview yesterday afternoon and i start my training today! to say that i am excited is an understatement. i even get to wear khakis and skirts and ironed clothes again :) it's a win win!

while i was there for the interview, just the sight of the students, the #2 pencils, the binders and all the markers got my heart rate going. once a teacher, always a teacher.

the timing, the details and the job were just exactly what i was dreaming of. mike is really excited too, and has been really supportive. he is a master resume tweaker. i'm just waiting for him to say at any second, "is it kinda like the derek zoolander center for kids who can't read good and wanna learn to do other stuff good too?" because that's just the way he rolls.

remember how part of our big tree came crashing down last friday? well, we got our trees trimmed yesterday. and when i say trimmed, i mean MEGA trimmed. they trimmed all our overgrown growth and took down 8 other trees that were on our property and were either really ugly, really inconvenient or just no good. it looks GREAT. it lets so much more light in the house and our oak trees no longer resemble weeping willows. they were trimmed just in time for our upcoming friday forecast of windy. we all know how windy went down last friday.

and mike, to you i say, "you're welcome."

backing into the trash can this morning and sending it down face first into the mud was truly my pleasure. each day i wake up and i think to myself, how can i bless my husband today? and backing your truck into the trash can just seemed right.

to you i also say, "thank you."

thank you for filling said trash can so full of dirt that i had to air my dirty laundry and ask our neighbor to set it upright again :)

happy hump day to you and yours!

the day i got attacked by a sparrow

so i'm at heb, doing my due diligence of stocking the panty pantry and the fridge full of goodies. i was in the middle of jamming out to everybody plays a fool by aaron neville, when i thought to myself, i think we're out of baby carrots. so i meandered over to the carrot section to get some baby carrots, and out of NOWHERE this killer sparrow flies out of the carrot baskets and into my face. so like any cool, calm, collected, non-exaggeratory {not a real word} person...i screamed my fool head off. because, really? who's expecting a sparrow to fly out of the carrots? INSIDE heb? i wasn't either!

it was really okay that i screamed so loud. and all the people who witnessed the event understood. those who did NOT see the sparrow and only heard the scream? well, they think i am a lunatic. they are probably at home telling anyone who will listen about the crazy carrot lady.

after it flew at me i grabbed my face, just SURE that i felt blood and a gaping wound. it turns out that it was just the shock talking and that it hadn't really made beak-to-cheek contact. i'm now resting at home and am expected to make a full recovery.

you know what i always say? better a BIRD than a BAT.

watch out. these things look innocent, but they're really out for your carrots...

{photo courtesy of the ever helpful wikipedia}

earth, wind and fire

but really just the wind part. and how the wind part affected my earth :)

it's a wiiiiindy day in the coastal bend. yesterday the winds were 25-30 mph and i LOVED it. it made my morning walk so pleasant and kept my little wind chime singing it's happy little tune all day long. and then today happened and the winds got up to 40 mph. and caused this to happen in our front yard:

wow.

i am unashamed to say i was napping on the couch this morning when i heard the crash. i thought it was a car crash on our street. so imagine my surprise when i looked out the window and all i could see was tree. lots and lots of horizontal tree.

so i did what anyone would do.

i called my husband to ask him what to do.

he came home to assess the situation and now, as we speak, he is out there braving the branches and risking scrapes and pokes all in an attempt to break it down. i asked him if he wanted something bigger than a pocket-knife, but he said no. he's such a man.

just kidding. can you imagine?! dewalt is helping the brother out.

the fact that half of our tree is laying in our front yard is SUCH A BUMMER. it did such a great job at shading the yard and i just love big, wonderful trees. on the bright side, we had been talking about getting our trees trimmed anyway, so i think we just shaved a good bit off our bill. this little incident confirmed the fact that we do, in fact, need to get our trees trimmed. yesterday.

a very groddy addition to the whole thing? finding this on a big slab of the tree trunk.

after i looked at it for a sec and gagged a little bit, i ran inside to get the camera so that i can forever have this sick image burned into my brain. i am so not a bug person...nor a grub person.

i will take a minute to tell you how blessed we are... i had randomly parked my car on the street this morning in an attempt to avoid some crazy pollen we have falling in our driveway. the tree missed my car by about 1 foot AND it missed our house completely. thank you, Lord!

we're going on an ownby family camping trip in a few weeks...i think the pettijohns just signed up to bring the firewood and the kindling.