The Wailin’ Jennys

This is a band that Jesse and I are obsessed with lately. I played one song for my students in Study Hall. The minute it was over, one of them said, “Can you put more of that on?” and all the other students started agreeing, saying, “Who WAS that?” Yay for my kids, they like good music!

Anyway, here they are, The Wailin’ Jennys. 3 girls from Canada. They sound a little bit like Mindy Smith, Alison Krauss and that girl from Nickel Creek, all rolled into one. These two videos aren’t even their best songs, in my opinion, but you can see some of their best ones if you go to their MySpace page.

Calvin vs. Arminian Witnessing

Funny funny.

Calvin Witnessing:

vs. Arminian Witnessing:

Church

This is a gorgeous picture from Pascha that I stole off of a friend’s Facebook. I would just like to point out that this is where we go to church 🙂 My favorite parts are all the bible stories written on the walls- you could show a kid all of salvation history just by showing up!

Pascha!

‘Cactus Cuties’ Once Again

Last year sometime I believe that I posted a link to the Cactus Cuties singing the National Anthem. Here is a more recent song/show of theirs, performed at a Spurs game. The oldest is 14, the youngest is 9. One of them even recently broke their neck in a trampoline accident but made a full recovery.

Anyways, all I have to say is WOW. Especially the end, with the yodeling at 4.30.

Spoiled Texan Needing Forgiveness, Coming Right Up!

Grrr, I just feel that I have to vent to whoever will care, especially since I’m sure Michael, Courtney and Jesse are tired of hearing me rant.

Our apartment complex has a complicated computer process that fluctuates the rent based on how many of that particilar floorplan are available or are becoming available at any given time. This means that for some reason, our floorplan, THE SAME EXACT ONE THAT WE HAVE, is going for a lot less than we are paying monthly. And when I say a lot less, I mean a lot less. Try $849/mo.

Granted, as a prior-Californian, my eyes should be popping out of their sockets as I read that. 2 bed, 2 bath, 1200 sq. feet apartment built in 2001? And we don’t even have to take on a second job to afford it? It’s a miracle!

But instead, I am just mad that we are paying $150/mo. more than we should. Oh, how quickly we forget our blessings!

Porch Update #2

I finally got a love seat for our porch! It’s from Pier One and I got in on Craigslist for cheap. Michael and Jesse gave it a stamp of approval after they watched the Dodgers on a laptop and smoked cigars tonight.

It did mean that I had to move my shelf (I was worried that it would blow over if I placed it against anything but the one solid wall) into our storage unit. This meant that I also had to re-organize the packing boxes in the storage unit. Granted, it was about time. Our moving boxes have been haphazardly shoved in there for six months, which really has been a tragic waste of lots of good space. So good came from having to move the shelf. Plus I now have a place to store all my new gardening supplies!

But it did mean that I had to move my herb garden indoors, since I no longer have anything to set it on. Luckily, we have a kitchen window which gets a good amount of sunlight. Plus our herbs should be near where we cook, if and when we ever decide to use them. Right now, ripping off leaves seems a little anti-thetical to my mission.

Drink the sun, my little herbs!

The Bride Was Beautiful

Look at these pictures. You will thank me.

Tired of Spending $ at the Groomer?

The other day, Jesse and I decided that we were tired of mistaking our dog for a walking fur-ball. We had also forgotten she has eyes.

So we decided to trim her. Instead of paying the $50 to take her to PetSmart, we decided to try it ourselves. I mean, how hard can it be, we thought.

Wrong.

I now have so much respect for dog-groomers! Even the sleezy minimum wage/parole guys. Unsuspecting optimists that we are, Jesse and I got ready by merely arming ourselves with an electric shaver and scissors.

We quickly did away with the electric razor. Clara’s coat was already so long and thick that that ship had long since sailed.

So we switched to scissors. We soon found that each snip-attempt had an expiration of about 2 seconds before she jerked or moved. Trying to follow a dog’s leg around with an open pair of scissors is scary, both for the person holding the dog and for the one who is thinking, “How am I going to explain a severed limb to the vet? Will they take my doggie away from me?”

Gradually, we hacked away at the massive bush that is Clara’s hair, only to discover that when you cut in 2 second intervals, the result is….less than consistent. More like trying to trim a bush caught in a cyclone while blindfolded. Let’s just say…Clara has a few bald spots.

"Mommy, will my hair ever look pretty again?"

Not only is it hard to cut hair evenly all around things like a BUTT and a TAIL and PAWS, but it’s hard when your dog is terrified of the sound or sight of scissors. You’d think she’d been tortured by scissors in a past life the way she was acting. Granted, this is probably what has occurred since then in her dreams, but we’ve been very good to our dog (really, we have!). So in order to get anything accomplished, Jesse or I had to sing to her to drown out the noise, close her eyes, and hold her still while the other person did the snipping.

We also had to alternate with different parts of her body, depending on how still she was being, saving the calmest of moments for her eyes and chin. We would get one side of her chin done, but have to wait for the other. This made for many moments of sad laughter, as either Jesse or I would exclaim, “Wow, that’s really awful looking.” It’s really hard to admit that your $200 dog looks like a rat.

Eventually we got to the point where all 3 of us were tired of the whole thing. So we decided to save the rest for later. The result was less than favorable. Notice how big her paws look in comparison to the rest of her body (we saved most of the leg hair for later since it’s the hardest).

Clara feels that she is too ugly in her current state to actually look at the camera

So much hair!!!

I made a hair animal. We will call her Daffodil.

Last night, Jesse and I decided to try for Round 2. Clara was much calmer this time, which made things much easier.

Clara in her new 'do'

So, even if it wasn’t perfect, it saved us money. And Clara is much happier now that she is able to cool off and walk around without tripping on her own hair.

Will we do it again? At this point, I’m not sure. $50 is a lot of money, but the 3 hours of our time that we will never get back? The psychological damage it did to our precious puppy? The slow dissolution of my dreams as a hairdresser? Suddenly $50 looks like the budget route.

Porch Update #1

I do realize that my last several posts have all had numerals in the titles. If you psycho-analyzed it, it would probably show that I am trying to organize my life and therefore my brain.

Anyways….on to the porch update.

No additional furniture yet, but there are plants, and after 4 days they are so far so good!

Pan out view of porch

Yes, yes, I know I cheated by buying pre-grown herbs. But what chance do I have if they’re not even alive before I get them? Seriously.

My little herb garden!

Jasmine and Mandevilla...I think 🙂

One more pic of the beautiful view from our porch!