Randoms

Letting Ek hold her.

Edie is so weird about Ek.  Ek is a coworker of mine who helps with our yard because Chris and I are too lazy to do it ourselves.  Well, I'm too pregnant; Chris is too lazy.  She was deathly afraid of Ek for the first half of her life.  Probaby because he's very loud and animated.  Last night though she let him hold her for about 20 minutes like it was no big deal.  But then when he went to leave she did her I'm-going-to-cry face if he so much as looked at her.  Go figure.

Reading Cat.  It's been a fave for a while now.

Edie's new favorite thing to play with is my bowl of bracelets.

Chris deep in thought.  I see this a lot.  I always assume he's stressing about ABE.

Good Night Gorilla is such a cute book.

All the cats in this book creep me out.  Scary cat is right!  Look at that thing.

Evening bottle.  Hey whatever makes her happy. (By happy I mean quiet.)

Okay folks, it's time to vote.  If you live in Dallas get yourself to your closest voting location.  They are doing early voting all week.  Yes you can vote for governor but more importantly you can vote to lose the stupid wet/dry areas in this city.  You can vote to drink and buy booze anywhere!!!  You can vote to buy beer at your local gas station!!!!!  If readily available alcohol is important to you, as it is to me, get yourself out there and vote.  If you live around me you can vote at the Audelia Rd. library from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm all this week.  Next Tuesday you will have to vote at your designated location.  You should have received a letter in the mail telling you where this is.

 

NEH in the fall.....

...is now going to happen on a regular basis.  For those of you that don't know (poor souls) NEH is Northeast Harbor, Maine.  NEH is a small town on Mount Desert Island which is also home to Acadia National Park.  O'Connor/Rushes, I hope you don't mind me documenting your recent visit to Sweetbriar.  It has taken me a week to publish this post because I've spent the past week in a deep depression because I wasn't there to share it with yall.  I'm better now and ready to write about it, or at least post other people's pictures.  The trip began Thursday, October 14 in the evening.  Everyone, expect Taylor who would drive up from Boston, left Dallas for Bangor, Maine via Laguardia.  Long story short, they ended up driving from NYC all night in a rain storm to Bangor, Maine, arriving there at 7:00 a.m. without their luggage.  All I'll say is American Airlines, that should be enough to explain the drive.  They arrived at Sweetbriar Bungalow on Friday morning as planned, a little tired and dirty.  I assume from the pictures that they quickly made a fire and mimosas, although probably not in that order.  After years of renting the O'Connor/Rushes now own the cutest house in NEH.  It overlooks the harbor itself and is a 5 minute walk to downtown NEH.  The walk takes you past an apple tree that had fruit on it this past summer.  Every time we walked past it I would pick one for Edie to gnaw on which ended in several choking sessions.  Anyway the house is perfect in every way.  Congrats N,S,A, and S.  Am I crazy, or could we run the half marathon next fall?!!!  Mom said the half would end pretty much at Sweetbriar.  Think about it. 

To hear it from someone that was actually there check out Taylor's account. 

Amy on her iphone.

Steve's breakfast extravaganza.

A fall view from the Boathouse.

Cheering the marathon runners on on Sunday morning.  We could be those runners!!

Amy and Steve preparing breakfast.

The proud O'Connor/Rush family (and the Blacks) with the proof that you're someone in NEH.  Now the sign won't have to kept by a pool in Dallas, Texas.

Steve and Taylor preparing breakfast.

Taylor, Amy, and Liz on the deck that overlooks the harbor.

Booze, Maine, a roaring fire, and celeb mags, the way life should be.  Which reminds me, Nancy, have you thought about magazine subscriptions to keep this table stocked?  You can probably switch the Coastal Living for US Weekly.

Liz and Amy came to Maine to fiddle with their iphones.

Really they bought the house just to get their hands on this sweet sweatshirt.

Nancy on her new couch.  Note to self: when you buy a vacation home buy one that's already furnished, it makes arriving to it after an all night drive a little more pleasant.  Imagine walking in the front door to an empty house!

A fall view from a window.

Their longtime friend and realtor Sally Black signing the guestbook.  (Guestbook handmade by Amy Rush.)

How cute is that zipcode bag?!

I've Been a Bad Photog Lately

Sorry for the lame and infrequent postings as of late.  My reason isn't a good one.  I'm just tired and too lazy to pick up a camera.  Here's what you've missed: tons and tons of walkie walkie, bad mood Frog as we attempt, yet again, to cut back on her bottle drinking, a trip to a very crowded Dallas Arboretum, me eating half a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream last night right before bed.  And at work it's open enrollment time for our benefits.  At SMU this is done on the internet which probably works great for everyone employeed here except my guys who don't own or operate computers.  So every fall I get to get my crews' logon and passwords updated, one by one.  Then I get to enroll every person which is difficult because I don't speak Spanish and they don't speak English.  We can communicate about landscaping in our own made up Spanglish but we don't have a language to communicate about insurance.  So it is difficult to impossible to get done.  This year I begged and several HR ladies including a translator will be helping so I don't have to enroll 12 people by myself. 

But back to our weekend, the most important thing that happened this weekend was not that Edie conquered square roots without a calculator but that I found a place in my neighborhood that will wash and French braid my hair for $10.  I will probably start going there several times a month because I love my hair French braided.  I have long hair but I am not interested in styling it or even washing it that often.  I wear my hair in pony tail daily.  The French braid is nice alternative and it eliminates all of my frizzies. 

Here are some pictures I shot last night so that I'd have something to post.  No too exciting though...

  

Flowers leftover from a baby shower I cohosted.  I wish I had an excuse to buy flowers like this for our house every weekend.

Sharing her peas.

Sleeping Frog.  This wonderful photo was taken by my mom.

Strollin and Walkie Walkie

There is a lot of strollin and walkie walkie going on in our house.  In case you don't know, walkie walkie involves letting Edie hold onto your finger as you and Frog walk around side by side.  It's her new fave activity.  When she isn't doing walkie walkie she's strollin with her baby stroller.

Walkie walkie is best done with some type of object being held in her other hand, rock, acorn, stick, toy, shoe, anything will do.

She knows how to push the music button now too.

This is my favorite thing: when she wants to change direction she braces herself and slings the stroller in the new direction.

We call this "I don't know."