Our Ordinary Life

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Words to Live By

Keri Smith writes these incredible books to help you free up your creativity. (as a side note, my favorite is Wreck This Journal). She had this incredible blog post a couple weeks ago about Secrets of the Self Employed (or How to be an Amazing [insert profession here]). My favorites are #6 -- Goof off on a regular basis (I completely LOVE this idea!) and #8 -- What you think becomes your reality. I always had a belief that if I cleaned out my recycling bin in my studio I would get new work. And guess what, it always happened. If you think the industry is screwed and there is no work to be had, guess what you will find out there?


So, go read her entry:  Keri Smith Secret's Shared and tell me which entry is your favorite!

Monday, August 09, 2010

Summer Mini-break

Most of the time my vacation time is spent visiting family of some sort. Not that I mind at all. I love my family and I love visiting with Danny's family as well. But sometimes, I feel like we need to do something...just the 4 of us. So we decided to take a little mini-vacation down to Galveston. Of course, we played the same little game we play with the boys every time we go somewhere: No, I'm not going to tell  you where we're going. We're staying in a place we've never stayed before. Just annoying stuff like that *GRIN* It gets the boys really excited and thinking about where we could be going and it's just plain fun for me and Danny!
Believe it or not, we've never spent the night down in Galveston. Danny found us a suite hotel, right across from the beach. As I told the boys, this was my idea of camping...a kitchen in the room. Although, I must admit, the kitchens in the RV's my parents had were bigger than this one:
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We stayed at the Casa del Mar (61st and Seawall for you locals who are reading). It was a little small, but certainly clean and not terribly expensive.

The kids' favorite part was the bunk beds:
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We went down Friday afternoon and spent the early evening on the beach. Note to self: 1600 on is the best time to hit the beach. It's cooled off enough to be pleasant (not scorching hot!). And, because it's the Gulf of Mexico, the water is nice and warm - almost bath-like!
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We picked the wrong side of the pier, so the water was full of seaweed (ewwww!). We fixed that problem by going to the other side of the pier on Saturday, so we had nice seaweed free water! HOWEVER...it was not a critter-free environment. The fish were really close in to the shore and jumping like crazy! And because the fish were in so close, so were the seagulls and the pelicans - all trying to get a good meal! One guy got slapped in the chest by a jumping fish! I wish I had my camera ready when that happened.
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Saturday and Sunday we had all-day passes to Moody Gardens. Talk about a deal! We had unlimited access to the Aquarium, the Rainforest, the Discovery Pyramid and the Imax Theater. We even had access to the Paddle Boat and the Beach, which we didn't use.
We all loved the Aquarium the best. Right now they are doing a special exhibit on Sharks, in additional to all the regular critters: Seals, Penguins and lots and lots of fish! To continue with the shark theme, we went to the Sharks in 3D IMAX movie. That was well done and informative.
The Rainforest suffered a lot of damage during Hurricane Ike two years ago. Not damage to the structure, but to the plants, birds, etc. that were housed in the building. Unfortunately, the basement of the Rainforest pyramid flooded (with about 9 feet of water) and it destroyed the HVAC system (temperature control). So a lot of what they used to have was moved out and has not been brought back yet. Moody Gardens is shutting down the Rainforest in September for some major renovations and it won't open again until May of next year. I hope they are able to bring back some of the other birds and fish that they had when I first went there 15 years ago. Now, that's not to say there wasn't anything to see. There was still plenty of vegetation and several waterfalls. The highlight though was the Macaws! They had 6 different types of Macaws...all in pairs. Those are beautiful birds!
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To end our trip, we had an early dinner at Gaido's...one of the most well know seafood restaurants on the Island! It was well worth it, too! Danny and I each had a different preparation of Shrimp (mine stuffed with seafood, Danny's stuffed with cheese, jalapeno and wrapped in bacon), while the boys had "fish fingers"...the fish was fried Tilapia! And it looked fabulous! Definitely going to eat there again when we go back!
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Sunday, July 25, 2010

We're finally done!

This was the last weekend for swim meets for this season! We had the Gulf Champs for 12 and Under with B and under times. For those of you new to swimming language, let me explain. USA Swimming (the governing body for swimming in the US) sets "motivational" times for age groups (10&Under, 11-12, etc.) by stroke (free, back, fly, breast, IM) and distance (50, 100, 200, etc.). The times go from B through AAAA, with B being the "slowest" of the competitive times. It's a big deal when a kid gets his first B time! So, how did we do? AWESOME, BABY! Both boys got personal bests in all their events. Adam got 3 ribbons: 4th for 50 Fly, 7th for 50 Back and 2nd for the 200 Free Relay. Geary earned 2 ribbons: 7th for the 500 Free and 3rd for the 200 Free Relay. Adam also earned his first BB time in the 50 Fly. Geary continued climbing up the ladder in the 11-12 bracket by getting another B time in the 500 Free. His coach told him that he swam a perfect race. His last 100 was the same time as his first 100. Geary is definitely going to be a long-distance swimmer. And both boys are awesome at the Butterfly! So how about a few pictures?
Adam on the blocks:
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Chillaxin dude:
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Adam Breaststroke:
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Gman Fly:
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Counting laps for Gman during the 500 Free:
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The spoils of victory:
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As always, more later!

Friday, July 23, 2010

A Little Bit of Scrapbooking

  I haven't been scrapping as much as I used to. I'm not sure what it is...a combination of wasting time on Facebook (c'mon, you know you all do the same thing *WINK*) and a burning desire to upgrade my work wardrobe.Anyway, I did find some time to scrap this week, so in honor of Froggy Friday over at The Lily Pad here is my latest effort:
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My Mother-in-Law Agnes captured the boys jumping into tubes at the lake near Georgetown, Texas. And the title? Well, I was listening to Chickenfoot's song "Oh Yeah!" and it just fit. Most everything is from the new collab Whirlwind by Gina Miller and Amy Wolff and it's 20% off through Sunday.


I will leave you with a few other layouts from the last few weeks (all credits can be found at My LilyPad Gallery )
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Weekend Recap

We had an active weekend, despite all the rain. Friday night we went out to dinner at Carrabbas. I really love their food! I had Whole Wheat Linguini and Clams in Garlic Olive Oil, Danny had Mr. & Mrs. C's special which is Chicken Involtini and Chicken Santa Rosa with sauteed spinach, Adam had spaghetti and meatball (it's one honkin' meatball!) and Geary had grilled chicken. Yeah...weird, I know! The kid does not like red sauce on his pasta, so he gets grilled chicken. Adam entertained us by practicing some magic at the dinner table. He's been playing this new computer game - Wizarding 101 - so he's got magic on the brain.

Magic Man

I didn't say he was very good!



I worked Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Gulf Champs Meet hosted by Fleet at the Fleet Pool. All Fleet families are asked to volunteer 24 hours per year, or they are charged $150. There are lots of things that go on to make a Meet run successfully - Concessions, Hospitality (feeding the visiting coaches and volunteers), running the Colorado computerized timing system, Clerk of Course, Safety Marshalls, Announcing, Parking.

I'm now part of the "committee" that is overseeing concessions at Fleet hosted meets. Fleet sells drinks (water, gatorade, sodas), muffins, fruit (bananas, apples) and some candy. All the heavy-duty "hot" food we contract out to a local sub-shop, Lenny's. So all that I'm responsible for is making sure we have enough drinks on ice, enough food (but not too much!) and keep an eye on the cash box. I'm working with one of the Board of Director members trying to come up with a committee of 3 or 4 other ladies so we can rotate through the weekend...that way none of us has to work the whole weekend. This is my second meet and it's getting easier for me. I'm starting to get a feel for the ebb-and-flow of concession sales.

The Voice of Fleet
Danny has become the "Official Voice of Fleet"! He does the announcing at almost every meet. The Team Director told me over the weekend that she hated to ask him to do it this past weekend because he does announce at every meet. But, he loves it!




Here fishy...
 Dan also picked up some fish to restart one of our fish tanks. He got 2 clown loaches, 4 bala sharks, a lemon angel fish, 2 red-tail sharks and a spotted plecko. Skylar thinks that she should be able to play with them!

After I left the meet on Saturday, we went to see The Sorcerer's Apprentice. We all LOVED it! Nicholas Cage is a whacko (highly technical term!), but he's brilliant! I love how they worked in the Mickey scene from Fantasia and some other cultural references (I don't want to spoil it for you!). If you're looking for a shut-your-brain-off-for-a-couple-hours type of movie, this is it.

That's all for now...see you soon!

Saturday, July 17, 2010

A Little fun

I got this from my friend Janet via Facebook:


I write like
Stephen King
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!


Who do you write like?

Friday, July 16, 2010

Mid Year Recap, Part Deux

Mel goes on a Business Trip:
I went on the dog-and-pony show for Accelerated Month-End close, in preparation for our upcoming merger. I was demoing management reporting and how it would make their lives easier...blah, blah, blah! What that meant was that I got to travel overseas again...this time to the Eastern Hemisphere. I spent 4 days in Frankfurt and 4 days in Dubai. Frankfurt was wunderbar! The food was fantastic; the beer was fantastic (and I don't drink beer anymore!); the weather was fantastic! And best of all, World Cup was going on. Just about every restaurant that had outdoor seating had a big screen TV playing WC football! We even called our meeting early on Friday so we could go sit in a pub and watch Germany (LOSE! Eh!)
Frankfurt Old Town
Old Town Frankfurt. We ate lunch under the yellow awnings.Schnitzel and Spaetzel and Beer...oh my!

Bigger than your head?
Never drink anything bigger than your head!

Beer Hier!
What do you know...a litre of beer is NOT bigger than my head!

Then it was off to the Middle East. Dubai is a very Western city. And I mean WESTERN! If there hadn't been signs in Arabic, I'm not sure I would have known I was in the Middle East. To me, Dubai is a cross between New York City and Las Vegas. And yes...it is a DRY heat!

Dubai Day View
View from my hotel room.

Dubai Top of the World
Burg Khalifa. The World's tallest building

Coach...in Arabic
My favorite sign!

I did get to go to the Top of the Burg Khalifa. The view might have been spectacular, if the smog hadn't been so disgusting. I'm sorry, but Houston's smog problem is nothing compared to Dubai. We also went through the Dubai Aquarium (in the same mall that you enter the Burg Khalifa from). The only thing I missed out on was the indoor ski slope. That was in a different mall.

The Boys' Summer Adventure:
While I was off galavanting halfway across the world, Danny took the boys to stay with his Mom in Austin. Grandma had their days filled with lots of activities. A great summer vacation away from the parents!

Tubing
water sports, of course!

Pool Sharks
indoor gaming. My boys are turning into Pool Sharks. I'm going to have to learn to play just to keep up with them!

Grandma Agnes
Inner Space Caverns, south of Austin.

 Danny does...Arizona!

After dropping the boys off in Austin, Danny headed to Arizona to meet up with fellow cartridge collectors Pete and Bill. This was for research for his book he's writing...and possibly some bits for his Masters Thesis. Of course, being Danny, he hasn't shared any photos with me, so I have nothing to share with you. Suffice it to say, he came back a happy boy with lots of information!

Hope you enjoyed this mid-year recap. More to come...

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Mid-Year Recap

So I won't bore you with all those "best intentions" crap. Just suffice it to say that I haven't been moved to write until now. Who knows how long this latest interest will last, but hopefully it will be more than just a couple days :)

So what's been going on at Casa LeClair? Swimming, swimming, Mel goes on a girl's trip, swimming, Mel goes on a business trip while Danny goes on a research trip while the boys visit Grandma Agnes, and, of course, MORE SWIMMING!

So, let's start with...SWIMMING! (LOL!)
The boys swim year-round for the USA Swimming club Fleet. They love it! Geary is in the Silver group and practices 5 nights a week for 1 1/2 hours each night. Adam is in the Bronze II group and practices 4 nights a week for 1 hour each night. Of course, they do not practice at the same pool, so Danny and I do the divide and conquer routine, rarely seeing each other until about 8pm (2000 for those military folks). So, I like to say that I have no life, I have swimmers! We are at the end of long course season (swimming in 50 meter pools) and everyone is happy about that. I think my favorite, but most conflicted, moment was back in April at the Texas A&M Open meet. They competed in the same heat in the 50 Meter Breaststroke. Fortunately there were not swimming side-by-side! Danny just stood up and yelled "Go LeClairs!" Geary won the heat and Adam came in a respectable 5th place.
Now that Geary is 11, we don't have to worry about them competing against each other...at least not for 2 more years when they'll be in the same age group again.

Boys AM Meet
After the meet...

Boys 50 BR Competition
Lane 4 and Lane 7...

Mel goes on a girl's weekend trip
In April I drove to New Orleans to meet up with Jaynice and Janet for a girl's weekend away. The last time I was in New Orleans was in 1998 with my niece Jennifer. We had a spectacular time! We ate at some fabulous restaurants: NOLA - Emeril Lagasse's restaurant, GW Fins - a seafood restaurant with a menu changes daily, and Joey K's - featured on Diner, Drive-Ins and Dives. And on Friday, the beginning of the New Orleans French Quarter Festival - which had tons of food from local restaurants and lots of free, live music! And each night we went down to Bourbon street and drank Hurricanes and listened to more live music!

Hurricanes
Mmmm...Hurricanes!

Cafe du Monde
Mmmm...Beignets!

The Girls!
Mmmm....LOL!
The girls sitting on the steps of our "hotel" room. Photo taken by our wonderful security guard Max.



Tomorrow I'll conclude this mid-year recap.

Later...

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Sunday Recap

It's been a VERY cold week here in Houston. We've had 3 nights of freezing temperatures. Fortunately, there has been no precipitation (or Participation, as Adam keeps calling it. LOL!). Just super cold temperatures. But, that means we get to have a fire. I love a good blazing fire.

It also means that I could stay inside all weekend and play at The LilyPad's 3rd Birthday Bash! The ladies over there are lots of fun! I even won a couple gift cards during the Saturday evening chat - to Valorie Wibbens (Spotted Dog Designs) and Amy Sumrall. Can't wait to get some new goodies from both of them. But in the meantime, I picked up a TON of new stuff from Kaye Winiecki at The LilyPad's 30% off sale. Right now Kaye and Kristin Rice (K Studio) are my two new favorite designers of digi products. Here's what I got:


and these as well...including something from Amy Martin and Amy Wolff:


And since I'm showing off my digi purchases, I need to include these other things as well...
Gina Miller's contribution to the LilyPad's BYOC:


And the other pieces of the BYOC that I picked up:


Well...this was supposed to be a Project 365 post, but looks like that will have to wait until tomorrow. Yes...I'm keeping up with it. You'll just have to come back later to see what we've been up to.

Monday, January 04, 2010

Project 365

...or how many times am I going to attempt to do this? Once again I am embarking on a Photo-A-Day journey. The first year I made it 45 days before I pooped out. Last year, I made it about 3 weeks before it got to be too much. This year I swore I wasn't going to do it, but here I am, on January 4th, with photos from the first 4 days of the year. So, rather than say I'm "doing it" I will say that I will take a photo each day that I feel like it. And I will post those photos here...when I feel like it. No pressure. No guilt. Just some photos that represent our everyday life.

First...our New Year's Kitty.


The cats were being cute on the 1st, so I thought I should highlight all 3 of them:


Saturday, I went to Bonnie Blue Quilt's Warehouse Sale. I'm getting back into quilting, so this was the perfect opportunity to stock up on Civil War prints:


Sunday, Danny took down all the outside lights...and got tangled up a bit:


Some of the other ladies who are doing P365 are taking photos of each family member on their birth day, so today it's Geary (who even smiled for me :) ):


So how are you doing on your P365?

New Year...New Look

Just updating the look of my tired old blog. I'll be back a little later to share some new photos and give an update on all our doings.

Bye for now~