Calling all Tricia fans!

You may remember me posting last year about my first-ever participation in Race for Cure. My friend Jill, her mom Nancy, and I walked in the Race in Little Rock with over 45,000 other women. We had so much fun! During our three-mile walk, we discussed forming a Team Tricia (in honor of my mom, of course) for 2008. This year's Race is just around the corner on Saturday, October 11th. So . . . anyone interested? We're planning on going and would love to have a team if enough people want to go with us!

You may be wondering why we're going to Little Rock instead of Memphis. The short answer is because it's more fun. The community of Little Rock (plus many other towns in Arkansas) gets so into Race for the Cure. Living in Searcy for the past several falls, I heard about the Race on the news for weeks leading up to the actual event. Last year, there were over 45,000 participants in Little Rock, and the Memphis Race only had 14,600. Mom's done the Memphis Race before and had little to say about it. On the contrary, I could not shut up about the Little Rock Race last year! There are so many other events and activities going on there on and around Race day. The excitement there is just contagious. Plus, Mom said the Little Rock Race sounded more fun than our Race here in town. So, we're racing (aka walking at a leisurely pace) in Little Rock on October 11th.

If anyone's interested in joining us (the more the merrier), e-mail me or leave a comment here to let me knowIf we have enough people for a team, that will be great. If not, we'll just all go together and walk as a group and have just as much fun (seriously, we had a blast last year and there were just three of us!). We'll be going over on Friday night and spending the night, since the Race starts at 8am the next morning. For more information on the Race, click here. And to read about and see pictures of my Race experience last year, click the link at the beginning of this post.

Looking forward to a fun girls' weekend. :-)

Note to Nancy: Please come. Please, please, please! It won't be the same without you. And I need your help. I'll be a terrible team captain without you! Actually, if anyone else wants to be team captain, just let me know and I'll gladly hand over the title, ha.

why I overslept today

I've been working the past two days. On my work days, my alarm goes off for the first time at 5:04am, and then I usually push snooze a couple times and end up getting out of bed around 5:25. Just to make sure my snooze button-pushing doesn't get out of hand, I set my cell phone alarm as well and sleep with my phone right next to my bed. I never go to bed early, ever. 11pm is about the earliest I get to bed, even if I have to work the next day. I always try to go to bed earlier, but I just can't do it. I can always think of something better to do. I can get away with getting only 5-6 hours of sleep because I can sleep in on my days off. (And this is ideal compared to my nursing school days, when I averaged about 4 hours of sleep per night, and some nights didn't get to sleep at all.) Having said all that, now I'll give you a rundown of my night on Sunday night.

11:57pm I get in bed. I had wanted to get to bed earlier than this, but I'm still pretty pleased with myself for getting in bed before midnight.

around 12:15am or so I'm getting frustrated because I can't go to sleep. I rarely have trouble going to sleep (probably a sign that I don't get enough sleep, I know). Tekia crawls into bed with me. This is not unusual, but trying to fall asleep with an 8-year-old practically on top of you, when you're already having sleep issues, is not fun. And, no matter how asleep she is, she somehow can tell if you get away from her, and she'll scoot her way back over to your side of the bed to make sure that at least some part of her body is touching yours.

12:34am Tekia is sound asleep, but I am still not. This is the last time I remember looking at the clock before finally falling asleep.

around 1am About the time I actually fall asleep.

around 3:30 or 4am I wake up after hearing Jamal going to the bathroom, walking around, etc. He turned a few lights on and off. I feel like I've just fallen asleep and am slightly annoyed that he's woken me up, but I'm able to ignore him and go back to sleep.

4:19am I'm awakened by a clanging sound. Ding-ding-ding . . . every second. It's not a very loud sound, but it's just loud and annoying enough to wake me. Is this a joke? Why can I not go to sleep and stay asleep tonight? I try to go back to sleep, but I can't. Finally I get up and follow the sound to my parents' room, where my dad is sleeping alone because Mom had fallen asleep when putting Jamal to bed. It's the ceiling fan. The little chain was clanging against the light with every spin of the fan. I turn the fan off, go to the bathroom (where I can tell that Jamal has been), and then turn the fan back on, hoping that it slowed down enough to be a little quieter. I also shut my parents' door. As I'm heading back to my room, Mom shows up and says, "Where's Jamal?" I don't know. We find him in the living room, on the couch, watching TV. Mom instructs him to get back to bed. We all go back to bed. I look forward to an hour of sleep.

around 4:30am Again, I'm awakened. Again, by Jamal. Only this time, Mom is with him. At first I think, "Good. Mom's up. She'll get him back in bed!" Then I realize, she's just joined him in his quest to wake me up. They're up doing something together! Again . . . Is this a joke? What on earth could they be doing? Do they know I have to get up in 30 minutes? Lights are being turned on and off. They're rummaging around looking for something. I hear them walking around, opening and closing doors, opening and closing drawers and cabinets, and whispering. Word to the wise: whispering doesn't make much of a difference when you're opening and shutting every drawer and door in the house. As I lie in bed getting more and more angry (it's very difficult to go to sleep when you're mad, by the way, because all you do is lie there thinking about how mad you are and how you're getting madder by the second), I contemplate moving to the upstairs bedroom. Is it worth getting out of bed and walking upstairs for just 30 more minutes of sleep? Turns out it doesn't matter, because about that time, I hear footsteps upstairs! I can hear Jamal in the bathroom above my room. He opens and closes every drawer at least three times. Seriously, what are they doing?! Don't they know that when I go to work I have to take care of actual human babies for 12 hours?? And that I have to be awake to do that? I decide that if I make a med error that day, it will be their fault.

(Please keep in mind that this whole time I'm trying to go back to sleep, I'm periodically having to peel Tekia off me and push her back over to her side of the bed.)

around 4:40-4:50am Mom and Jamal finally get back in bed. I'm still awake. And mad. I can hear Jamal sniffing over and over and over again in his room (turns out, they were up looking for Afrin). The sniffing, of course, only irritates me more. People don't have to sniff -- they can stop if they want. Or they can at least close their doors.

4:50am I'm kind of awake, kind of asleep, and I hear my phone make a noise. Is it already time for my alarm to go off? No, it's a text message from my friend. It reads, "Is it early or late?" I'm not amused. The answer is that it's early and that my alarm's going to start going off in FOURTEEN MINUTES! I want to throw my phone against the wall but I know that then I wouldn't hear the phone alarm, which will go off in approximately 26 minutes. So I just try to go back to sleep.

5:04am My alarm first starts to go off, but, of course I don't need an alarm to wake me up, because I'm already awake. By this point, I know that my chances of getting even five minutes of sleep are slim to none, but I push snooze and continue to push snooze because I figure I deserve at least the hope of five more minutes of sleep. I'd had a hard night. The snooze button doesn't get me five more minutes of sleep, but it does allow me time to think about how mad I am at everyone and their apparent conspiracy to keep me from sleeping. Every time the alarm goes off and I realize I'm still awake, I push the snooze button and get just a little bit madder.

5:26am After multiple failed attempts at getting my little snooze naps, I finally get out of bed and start my day. Everyone else in the house is sleeping soundly. I'm still mad.


So, who else wants to move in?

Look who's home!

There's a horse in our backyard again. After lots of metal-detecting and nail-finding in the area formerly known as the barn, Bandit finally got to come back home yesterday. He can't seem to figure out where his bathroom went though . . . (He thought the barn was simply there for him to poop in. I guess catching it on fire was one way of cleaning it out.)

He's mad in this pic because I was making him hold his head up and walk. That's the kids' slip-n-slide airing out on the deck, by the way.

He's much happier here.

Here's a pic of him a couple weeks ago in the neighbors' pasture. He's the left-out one on the right. :-(
And here he is now - King of the Pasture.

20/20 tonight!

"There are places in America where the unthinkable is happening -- too many babies are dying. In most cities, black babies are dying at three times the rate of white babies. That's what's happening in Memphis, Tennessee, the city with the nation's highest rate of infant mortality. A baby dies there on average every 43 hours. Butmany people are working to change that startling statistic. 'Babyland,' a one-hourreport anchored by Elizabeth Vargas, airs on 20/20, FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, from 9:00-10:00pm, CT on the ABC Television Network."

That was from press release I just received. As a NICU nurse and an advocate for children in Memphis, I'd like to encourage everyone (especially those of you here in town!) to try to watch this. It probably won't be a fun way to spend your Friday evening, but hopefully we'll all be challenged and inspired to try to change what's happening in our city. Most of these deaths are preventable.

Click here to see a preview and here to read an article.

"Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." - Jesus (Matthew 25:45)

what's left of the barn

I thought y'all might like to see the remains of our barn. Actually, now they've all been scooped away by our friend Ryan and his big tractor. But this is what the barn looked like a couple days after the fire.

To look at the pasture, you'd never know a barn was even there.

Then you get closer and see the remains of our poor barn.

the tack room (sort of)

Readers' Digest

what's left of my saddle

Bandit's bit (that has probably been in his mouth less than 5 times in his whole life - we won't miss that much)

the girls displaying some of the barn's remains . . . Avery holding the saddle rack, saddle horn, and a horse shoe, Kia holding a golf club (only in our barn would you find a putter!) and a mane & tail comb, and Rumi holding a stirrup and my saddle.

Now it's just a mix of mud and ashes and a few stray nails, which we are trying to collect with the help of a metal detector before we let Bandit back into the pasture. We don't want him to step on any nails. We haven't been able to keep other animals away from the area, though. Mom and I saw some deer prints down there yesterday - hope they didn't get any nails stuck in their hooves!

Hot Springs 2008

A couple weeks ago, we made our annual trip to Hot Springs, AR for a long weekend on the lake with our friends. Our wonderful friends Chuck and Jane let us come play on their boat every year. Our group started off as four couples and the children, and, to an extent, that's still what it is. Only now the children have multiplied! In the beginning, there were 13 of us. Now there are 23! So it's a little bit crazier than it once was, but we have a good time. We have so many people now that one boat isn't enough, so Ryan brought a pontoon borrowed from some of our other friends. We don't all live in the same place or attend the same church anymore, so it's a rare occasion for us all to be together. We love this weekend. Below are some pictures.

Jane and Jamal skiing double

Chase on Chuck's boat

Hunter and Kia on Chuck's boat

This is what Chuck & Jane's condo looks like every day around lunch time.

Avery and Dylan having a little lunch date on Chuck & Jane's balcony

When we heard thunder and saw the sky looking like this one day, we decided we might need to head back to the condo.

But then we discovered Chuck's boat wouldn't start. Fortunately, the pontoon half of our group was out and came to our rescue.

Because I took so many pictures (hard to believe, isn't it?), I made a Shutterfly album with some of my favorites. Click here to see the rest of the pictures. Note to my Hot Springs friends: You can order prints from that album, but I wouldn't, because I shrunk the pictures. I'll make everyone CDs.

"I work at the cemetery." -Avery

Here's Avery getting interviewed by her daddy about her "job." This child is an endless source of entertainment. Enjoy.



Oh, and we have no idea what the random classes/cleaning up the toys and trash comment is toward the end of the video . . . she must've slipped into another world for a moment (as if she's not there all the time!).

Camp Granna

Each August, Hunter and Avery come spend a week with us for "Camp Granna." We do all kinds of fun activities and go on lots of field trips. I feel like the week should actually be called "Camp Granna & Aunt Callie", but I guess that's getting a little lengthy. That's okay, though . . . we all know that Camp Granna would be way less fun if Aunt Callie weren't here. ;-) Jared and Shelby actually spent the week in Jamaica (Chase stayed with his other grandparents) and got back last night. So Camp Granna officially ended last night and the kids went back home today. Needless to say, we're all pretty tired. We had a blast and were sad to see the kids go, but maybe now I can finally catch up on my blogging! More on Camp Granna later . . .

my new blogging machine

I have a new blogging machine. I actually got it right before we went to Turks and Caicos. A MacBook. That's right. I've crossed over. I've joined the world of Macs. However, I promise never to be one of those obnoxious Texan-like Mac owners (I'm not talking about you, Jill. Though you are both a Texan and a Mac owner, you're not obnoxious about either trait). You know who I'm talking about . . . those my-computer-is-better-than-your-computer, my-mac-is-so-awesome-I-want-to-marry-it kind of people. I won't be one of those. I love my new computer, but there are some things I miss about my old one. I mainly love this one because it's a laptop. I've never been able to sit on the couch and blog before, and I LOVE it. And it's so great to be able to take my computer on trips! Below is a picture of Mom hogging--I mean, using--the computer in our lobby in Turks and Caicos. I had my camera and was really tired and bored, so the only logical thing to do was lie on the couch and take pictures of our reflection in the ceiling.


And everyone enjoys playing with the built-in webcam and the photo booth effects. (Yes, that's Chase, the nephew I haven't posted pictures of in 10 years.)




So there you have it. I have a new computer. It doesn't really affect my blogging, but I felt I should let my readers know (both of you ;-).

bye bye, barn

Thanks to Patty for these pictures. Good thing the mayor got her a tiny new camera that she can carry around in her purse. ;-) If you're wondering why the fire fighters seem to be just standing around and watching during the worst part of the fire, it's because they couldn't get their trucks back there. They had to wait on a smaller truck that could get across our ditch and through the gate. By that point, it was way too late to save the barn or anything in it. Thank goodness they were able to keep the fire from spreading to the trees and the grass.

I left all these pics big, so you can click on them to see the bigger versions if you want.






And just to prove that Patty actually is the fire department paparazzi, here is another picture that was on her camera from earlier that same day (if you haven't noticed, she made the mistake of giving me her camera for the night, haha). Just a school bus in a house. No big deal.

sunny day, sweepin' the clouds away . . .

(Another Turks & Caicos post.) Our resort was very family-oriented, and one of the cool things about it was the fact that there were Sesame Street characters all over the place! Cool, and also a little strange. It's a little bizarre to be sitting by the pool and see Elmo walk by, but the kids loved it. Jamal is, of course, a little too old and cool to be excited about anything Sesame Street, but Kia and her friends loved it! Below are some pictures. The first three are just from around the resort, and the last two are from our farewell dinner. Elmo, Cookie Monster, Bert, and Ernie all came to see the kids at our last dinner there.

just a barn

Two boards standing straight up. A pair of grooming scissors. The metal rack that used to hold the saddle I was once so proud of (it was dressage, not western like everyone else had). The thin metal frame of my saddle. A broken metal bit. Some soggy Reader's Digest pages from the magazines Mom used to read while feeding the horses. The melted remains of a red lead rope. A misshapen metal hay rack. A water spicket. Piles of nails and ashes and horseshoes. That's about all that's left of our barn.

It was built shortly after my eleventh birthday to house my gift -- a four-year-old Paso Fino named Bandit. On Wednesday afternoon it burned to the ground. Two 13-year-olds, two Roman candles, really dry wood, and horse poop don't mix.

Fortunately, no one was in the barn when this happened. A live ember must've smoldered for a while because the fire didn't even start until a few hours after the fireworks were shot. It took the firefighters a good couple of hours to put the fire out, but, thankfully, no one was hurt.

Bandit is fine. Our neighbors have been nice enough to let him hang out with their horses until we can get our pasture cleaned up.

What I will probably miss the most is the beautiful wooden nameplate that my old riding teacher made for Bandit's stall. It was a black with his named painted in white. On either side of his name she had carved and painted a horse prancing away. They looked exactly like Bandit, right down to the white check mark on his forehead. I wish so much that I had a picture of it. Of course the real Bandit had broken off the front legs on both of the fake Bandits, so it wasn't as pretty as it once was; but at least it had character, ha.

A lot of good memories were made in and around that barn, but it was just a barn. The reins were just reins. The bridles were just bridles. The saddles were just saddles -- even my fancy dressage one.

Thank goodness it was just a barn.

The barn in happier times. We'll miss you, barn.

P.S. I was at work when this all went down, but, thanks to our friend Patty (a.k.a. the first lady of Bartlett a.k.a. the Barlett Fire Department paparazzi), I will be posting pictures of the fire soon, as well as pictures of the barn's remains. I'm getting a little stressed thinking about all I have to blog about . . . the last of our Turks & Caicos pictures, our trip to Hot Springs, the fire, and now Camp Granna! Hunter and Avery arrived at Camp Granna on Thursday night, so we are quite busy. Oh, and Happy Elvis Week to all you Memphians. ;-)

Let it be known

that I am packed and ready to go and have time to sit here and blog about it while waiting for the rest of my family! That's all. I'm the first one ready. I'm waiting on everyone else. Just wanted everyone to know.

here we go again

We're squeezing in one more little vacation before school starts. This time we're off to spend our annual long weekend on the lake with our best family friends. Kia's ready. Can you tell?

Be back next week!