Freshening up the House for Fall

I have been cleaning and organizing lately.  Yesterday, I decided to make over my entryway.  I bought a new hall table, and decluttered all the excess stuff that was making it hard to move through the house.

Here's my shiny, new entryway:

The table is from Pier 1.  The flower cone & silk tulips were a Mother's Day gift from my husband and daughters.  I moved it from the dining room into the entryway.  Now, walking by this area makes me smile.

Dance Costumes & Taxes

It's that time of year. Time to finish up paperwork and file taxes. And time to select and order dance costumes for the year end recital. This year Krista is receiving her 5 year crown. She's excited because she's doing 3 solos. I love that she's so passionate about dance. She has true joy in her movements to music. And I want the costumes she wears to reflect that joy and beauty. There will be pictures later, when we get them all fitted and ready for rehearsal.

Krazy Kitties!

Angel on top

of the closet doors!

Lucky likes to

drink out of the sink!

It was the last day of school, June 2008. My stepson, a flatbed truck driver, called me. He was at a truck stop and heard strange noises coming from his truck. With the help of another trucker they located the sound in a small compartment under his trailer. Three tiny kittens had been put there for safe keeping by their wayward mother. He didn’t know when they had come aboard. But he took them to a vet for a checkup, then called me to see how I felt about nursing the two week old kitties. It would have been easy to say no, but school was out and I didn’t have a good excuse. My daughters (age 12 and 9) had been begging for a pet of some kind for months. So, I let him bring them home.

I spent the next several weeks as a foster mother to the three kittens. Unfortunately, one of them didn’t survive due to a birth defect. But the remaining two thrived. Both are calicos (one traditional orange and black, the other gray and cream). Lucky, the black and orange kitty is now my youngest daughter's kitten. And Angel is my oldest daughter's buddy. But both kittens think I’m their mother and follow me around.

Kids & Kittens

How is it, that kids and kittens both get under your feet or bug you when you are at your most tired?

If I am doing dishes, laundry, sweeping, brushing my teeth just to name a few, the kittens ALWAYS manage to be right there. They stick their noses and paws into everything. Oh yes, they're cute and snuggly when they want to be. But the most curious and unrelenting creatures for getting your attention when you don't want to give it!

My kids are the same way. Mine will wait until my hands are in dishwater, I'm in the bathroom, on the phone or putting them to bed to ask me the most complicated questions that require more than a yes or no answer. Questions that often require research or some serious thought on my part.

When I put my oldest to bed, her brain goes into overdrive and she tries to ask me about everything she's been thinking about all day - kind of like a core dump of information - so that she can get it out of her brain and go to sleep. "What's the November birthstone?" "How do babies get made?" "What's the hardest rock on earth?" "Why does my toe hurt?" Most of the time these are questions that don't have simple or easy answers, and I can't respond to them at that moment.

I love my kids. But when I'm tired and putting them to bed, I just want them to go to sleep! I've given out all the answers I can for the day, and no more are forthcoming. It's more of a ritual now. She knows she won't get all the answers she seeks, but she asks the questions anyway. It's like she doesn't want to let go of that last little bit of time with me. I know that someday, I may miss these before bed sessions. But for now, just let me sleep!

Winter break ended today and my kids went back to school. The house was strangely quiet without them. Yet, it was nice to have some "quiet" to surround myself in. Quiet and calm seems to be a rarity for most moms. But we all need that place in our lives where we can slow down and listen to NOTHING!

The weather kept me in too. We don't often get winter beauty in my neck of the woods, but here's a bit of Mother Nature decorating the trees today.

I'm a transplant to Texas. My DH and I worked for the same company but in different states - me in NY and him in Texas. When we first started our long distance romance, I came to Texas to visit him for long weekends. My first visit was over Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday weekend. After three days together, I almost didn't get on the plane to go back to NY. I was crying all the way to the plane so openly that the flight attendant even asked if I was okay. Sure . . . I'm just ripping my heart out by leaving. Paul and I had known each other for almost 2 years at that point. But it wasn't until that weekend, that I think we really fell deeply, truly in love.

When I came back again in the spring, we took a drive down to the Texas Hill Country. It was there that I first saw bluebonnets. A vast ocean of flowers along the roadsides and across fields where cattle grazed. It was breathtaking! I love other wildflowers that grow in Texas, but it's the bluebonnet that won my heart. Bluebonnets happen to be the State Flower of Texas too! They're said to get their name from the shape of the petals - they look like an old-fashioned bonnet that pioneer women wore. And that is what inspired the name for my blog - just in case you were wondering.

New Year's Musings

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while now. New Year's Day seemed like a good time to start. I'm going to practice my writing skills. But I'm not certain what focus this blog will take as yet. Hi to those of you who've stumbled into my blog.