Where are you going for Thanksgiving?

As for us, we're going to Alabama to my in-laws. This is going to be an interesting weekend. We're taking Lacy with us. It's a 9 hour drive. Lacy is great in the car, but we've never had her on a 9 hour drive before.

My only real concern is when it comes to eating. Normally on these trips we just go through drive through and keep moving. Having 70 pounds of gyrating enthusiasm want a piece of your hamburger is going to make for interesting mealtime.

Then, when we get to Alabama, it is still going to be interesting. At my in-laws house they don't allow animals in the house. At my sister in laws house next door, she has something like 4 dogs and who knows how many cats. Lacy and I will sleep at my sister in laws. She leaves her dogs food down all the time so her dogs can feed on command. Lacy eats a raw diet once a day. If she eats the other dog food she'll almost certainly end up with...let's say..intestinal distress. This is something you don't want at any point..but certainly not when you're at someone else's house, and certainly not when you're about to have to drive 9 hours home.

So, these are my concerns. I'll keep you updated.

Congratulations to Our Own Terrah Rominger!

Check this out!

That's right! Our very own Terrah Rominger has been selected as one of the top 30 under 30 travel agents as selected by Travel Agent Magazine.

What an honor!

The Post In Which She Vents

I am so incredibly frustrated right now I just can't even stand it. I have two websites (count 'em...ONE.....TWO) websites that are THIS close to being ready for prime time. I feel like these projects have been hanging over my head most of my life.

On one of them I hired the development out via Elance.com. Things appeared to go pretty well at the very beginning, but what was supposed to be an 8 week project has now taken 6 months. I finally filed a protest with Elance to say..."Okay, I want my money back, this is ridiculous!" and the provider offered to finish the site within 4 days and only do it for the 50% of the original money (which was the amount I'd already paid him).

I VERY CAREFULLY put IN WRITING (do you see how mad I am...using the all caps and whatnot) my requirements so that there would be NO misunderstanding. It took a week beyond even that renegotiated deadline, and there is SO MUCH WORK I STILL HAVE TO DO ON THE SITE that it makes me tear up every time I think about it.

My frustration tonight is that he DIDN'T TURN ON SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY (SEF) URLS! Who doesn't do this? Who creates a site and doesn't make it easy for the search engines to find it? How ridiculous does it have to get?

I really feel like hitting something. I'm so frustrated. (Did I mention that?)

My Mornings

I think I mentioned a while back that I've started the routine of waking up at 5:30am to get 90 minutes of work done before my family gets up and I start the whole "brush your teeth, get dressed, did you take your vitamins?" routine.

I'm still at it.

I'm finding that by Friday morning I'm pretty darn tired. Also, every evening by about 9pm I'm really longing for my pillow. On the upside, when I finally arrive at the office each day I can dig right into work that can most effectively be done at the office like working in clientbase, creating Christmas hold tapes with my staff.

I'm also finding that almost every morning I wish I had more time. The morning is the only time I work without interruption. The time is delicious. I have to go wake up Ruthie in about 5 minutes and then the day will begin...

Christmas is Coming, the Goose is Getting Fat.

Today at the office we will record our Christmas season hold tapes. I'm also going to record one for the main line. I'm the most excited about this one. I've decided that we're going to sing "Jingle Bells" and "We wish you a Merry Christmas" in the style of a rag tag group of carolers that might ring your doorbell. I'm going to have the DING DONG sound effect, then the sound of an opening door...then we'll start.

The staff are all going to think I've lost my mind, and maybe I have..but just like when I painted our back room Barney purple...I figure..why not!? Who can stop me?

What Fun!

Selvatica

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things here at home. Here is a picture of me at Selvatica. We did a great zipline and a swim in a cenote. They have other activities there as well. It was great fun!

Today, I am Stressed.

Just keeping it real today.

We have a wonderful trip to Mexico on Saturday. I'm looking SO forward to the trip. It is the VERY RARE trip that Philip and I both go on. It is SO MUCH MORE WORK to get ready for both of us to leave than it is for either one of us to go on a trip alone. We have Leah from our office coming to stay with the kids, so I'm trying to make notes about what needs to happen every day while we're gone. I'm also trying to get the house in at least some sort of decent order. Leah, don't judge me. I'm just a working mom struggling to get her kids out the door each morning to school and feed them when they come home at night.

I had a strange night of dreams last night. I had a dream that we took Lacy with us this weekend to Mexico. On the airplane we had one of those reclining seats and Lacy just slept with me on the plane. (Yeah, right..they'll let 70 pounds of puppy gyrating enthusiasm with you on the plane..) When we got to the resort it was a problem because Joe (the owner of the resort and one of the most brilliant people I know) wouldn't let her be outside. So, somehow we had a crate for her and we kept her crated in the room. At one point children were congregating outside our room because they could see her in our room and they wanted to play. That was great except the resort is strictly adults only...where did the kids come from? Then when it came time to come home, I couldn't bring her back to the states without her going into quarantine.

Lacy is being spayed tomorrow and will board at the vet while we're gone so she can recover. I'm stressed about missing her and I'm stressed about her being boarded for 5 days. I'm a little stressed about the surgery, but not really that much..it's pretty straightforward and they do it all the time with mostly good results. I'm also stressed because Lacy just KEEPS SCRATCHING. That dog takes an incredible amount of Benedryl every day and she eats a raw diet lovingly prepared by me and still she just scratches her self silly. I found a black spot on her today in the same area where her hot spot was before. The black spot is a spot of infection on her skin. Looks like we're in for another round of antibiotics and steroids. Is this going to be a constant thing?

Let's see..what else am I stressed about. I'm a little stressed about the trip this weekend because my dear dear friend who is planning it is a little stressed that it is supposed to storm the whole time. Seriously, I could care less. But, she has great activities planned for the group and that will all go to pot if it rains.

Okay..I feel a little better now.

You Must See This

My favorite part is at 3:35

My Mom

Today was Day of the Dead or El Día de los Muertos It's a big celebration in Latin America, and I wish it was celebrated more here. I think it's a great holiday. If I weren't getting ready to leave in 6 days I would have driven up to my mommas grave up in Denison to visit and make sure everything is in good order. It's just a little too far though and would have taken the whole day.

So, this blog post is my celebration of Day of the Dead. My momma was born January 11, 1941 and passed into glory on May 15, 2004. She was magnificent. She loved extravagantly and I am particularly blessed to have known her. She was graceful, even at the end when she suffered through the ravages of the disease that took her.

My momma was the orbit around which our whole family rotated.

One of the things they do on Day of the Dead is make the deceased favorite foods. My moms favorite foods include pecan pie, fried chicken from Churches, and supreme pizza.

Another thing they do on this day is pray for the deceased. According to my beliefs, there is really nothing left that my mom needs prayer for. Her eternal destination is already sealed and she is with Jesus. What I can pray, though, is a prayer of thanks.

"Dear Lord, thank you for the life of my mom. Thank you that she knew you and is now with you and that I will see her again. Thank you for the peace she had with dying because of Jesus."

Amen.