THIS IS A NICE THOUGHT!

I hope this is correct!
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I aplogize if you are offended by the profanity.

OPEN HOUSE in OKC

Jonathan and I will be back in the metro this weekend (at least until Saturday sometime) to do a little prep work. Our Realtors are having an OPEN HOUSE on Sunday, October 2, 2005. If you want to check out the house, or know someone who might be interested in this Oklahoma City property, please check out the multiple pictures on the open house link!

UPDATE

I would appreciate it if you would also say a prayer for the quick sale of the house. Thanks!

System Updates

The computer will be out of commission starting this evening. Jonathan got the system recovery CDÂ’s and we will be wiping the computer again to convert to XP. I will try to post pictures of VictoriaÂ’s Dance class in her photo album, before I wipe my drive. I am going to repost the Open House to the top of the screen so it is the first thing seen, if I donÂ’t post for a couple of days.

UPDATED

Pictures of Victoria's dance class are in my photo album. Also, for those of you who might be trying to organize your contact info I would like to recommend Plaxo. I imported my e-mail address book and Plaxo sent out e-mails for people to update their contact info. I'll print off a hard copy for home, but it is very nice to have access when I'm not at home. I also like the ease of updating my contact information and others. I give it 2 thumbs up!

UPDATED (AGAIN)

Okay, it is official, I cannot install the recovery for XP over my existing 2000 Pro. The wipe of hard drive will begin as soon as I burn a few pictures off. I'll be back up as fast as I can.

Is this what Heaven looks like?

Jonathan got to go out to California when I was about 4 months pregnant with Jackson to spend a week with his brother. Ever since that time Jonathan has sworn up and down that when we take our first REAL family vacation, we are headed to California to run up and down the coast.

His favorite place was Big Sur. I don’t think he and his brother actually went to the beach there, but Jonathan says it was the prettiest. In this picture you can see the waterfall, but just around the bend is a very cool land bridge. He found this picture on the net, and all I can think is that, that beach looks like Heaven.

Realistically we may have a short version of a real vacation (when Jonathan starts getting 3 day weekends) this fall. He keeps saying we need to go to Roaring River. I think the time when the leaves are changing would be perfect.

Last night

Last night I got a minute to relax.  I actually got a minute to sit down at the piano and play.  For those of you saying, “Sara, playing the piano?”  I started lesson last August when we moved to OKC and Mom gave me her piano.  My Grandparents moved and Mom was getting the piano she raised pigs to buy as a kid.  I was the only one of three girls who didn’t get lessons, but I was the one who wanted them now and the only one who wanted the piano.  I started lessons with a woman in Forest Park and she was wonderful.  If you need a piano teacher, I have a recommendation.

When I sat down I was surprised at how little the move had affected the tuning.  Jonathan has sat down and played, his mother has sat down and played, but for some reason I hadn’t.  Actually I know one reason I haven’t, I couldn’t find my easier books and I’m not about to tackle something from a hymnal.

It was nice to just sit down and play again.  Jonathan was at the computer and was so surprised that he remarked that it had been a while since he’d heard me sit down and play.  I almost forgot how much I enjoyed sitting down and making music.  Some days I just forget how important making music is to me, some days I just forget I’m good at it.  Even if I only spend 15 minutes a day, it is 15 minutes that can bring frustration and joy at the same time.

The Counter

66…and counting.

Okay, very few people have actually posted comments on my blog. Jeremy, Eric and Ryan had done some commenting (thanks for listening to me babble), but I got curious are these the only 3 people reading my blog. Late Thursday, September 22nd I added a counter to the bottom of my blog (I’m learning so many little things). To my surprise, my blog has been viewed by 66 people as of this afternoon and are spending an average of 11.5 minutes on my blog. Wow, I seriously thought no one would really visit and read this but a few people.

Also, I am on several times a day and I am not counted nor are other viewings from other addresses on my computer (I’ve checked).

WHY?

Working out hurts! Why on earth did I do it?

We recently brought in our machine (no weights-strictly lifting your body weight) when we got the rest of the boxes out of the downstairs. I’ve been avoiding the machine (why use it, I’m skinny) and I jumped into work out mode last Friday. I did a lower body video and then used the machine Saturday. I swear when I woke up this morning I thought I had dislocated a rib or something my muscles hurt so badly.

Why did I do that to myself? I’d better get on it again today and get into a routine. I just really hate being sweaty and being sore. Check back with me in a couple of weeks, I may fall off the workout wagon again.

Scottish Games

I haven’t remarked much on our adventure last Saturday.  We went to the Oklahoma Scottish Games.  Unfortunately we saw very little of the games, because after we looked around a bit and got to the game area the kids were very tired.

I have to say; I really think the bagpipes are very cool!  The music was incredible.  If you have never heard a large drum and pipe group in person before you are missing out.  I got some photos.  Mainly I got a lot of pipe and kilts, some Clydesdale horses, hawks and a few events.

The events you will see are the distance for weight, the sheaf toss and the women’s amateur caber toss.  The caber that woman is holding was 10 ½ feet tall and 35 lbs (she was about my size, except way more muscular).  That is like stretching Victoria until she is 10 ½ feet, picking her up, running and tossing her end over end.  It was impressive to see.  Men’s cabers start at 90 lbs.

We will probably go back next year, but I think we’ll leave the kids at home so we can see more for what we paid to get in.

Have I ever mentioned…

I LOVE CHEESE FRIES!

Yes, I love cheese fries, heck I love nachos. Cover it in cheese and I would probably eat an old tire…well, maybe not.

Church Hunt

Be very, very quiet we're hunting churches (I wish I could sneak in unnoticed).

I'll tell you right now, I really don't like having to find a new church. I loved the one we went to in OKC. Cherokee Hill Christian Church was home from the 1st Sunday we stepped in. Finding a church where you feel like you belong is hard, but at CHCC it wasn't.

Well, we started our hunt Sunday (yes, I know we've been here 2 months). The church was okay, I just felt out of place. I felt like the church was trying too hard to be the popular style church instead of who they are. The minister didn't preach this Sunday, which was okay, because the President of Ozark Christian College spoke instead. I questioned how the sermon was going to go, with his fill in the blank sheet in the bulletin, but he said all of the things I needed to hear. He spoke about "doing church" in this day and age.

His key points were that their are 2 approaches:

1. The "membership approach" describes a congregation that exists to serve it's members so they can receive the benefits.

2. The "mission approach" describes a congregation that exists to fulfill God's mission in the world, whose members give of themselves unselfishly to reach those outside of membership.

His examples of churches who have stepped out were wonderful and uplifting. They gave me hope that we will find a servant filled church. Maybe this church wasn't a "mission" church, but we will eventually go back to see if they heeded this challenge to impact the community. Right now I just pray God will lead us to a church that is truly His, where we can feel His presence, instead of an emptiness in the experience. I felt very much at worship and in touch with God during that sermon on an emotional and logical level, but I was left cold for the remainder. I just need someplace where I am "in His Presence" instead of "in the show".

I now God has a place for us, I just wish right now that it was obvious and right in front of us. I'll be honest, right now I'm struggling. There are days I don't even think to pray outside of before meals and our standard goodnight prayer with the kids. I need to refocus on God and yank my Bible off the shelf for more than just Sunday morning. I think I'll go start with the book of James right now. Whenever I feel a bit lost, this always seems to be the place I start for a refocus, and to gain perspective.

Things Will Be SLOOOOW For A Bit!

Our desktop is 5 years old and needs a new power supply (the fan is out and it smells hot). The laptop is older and still runs on windows 98 and Jackson destroyed our wireless on it, now it's just a typewriter.

So, Jonathan just bought a computer from a guy at work. The computer was fine, but his hard drive was fried. We moved our hard drive and wireless card to this desktop and reinstalled the things that needed to be installed. It is so nice, faster and with more USB ports. Well, yesterday the guy gave Jonathan a Recovery CD. Since it had XP he decided he wanted to change our operating system too. We couldn't just install the XP image over 2000 Pro, so last night we wiped the hard drive to 0's and 1's. This all would have been fine except he gave us the application recovery CD and not the system recovery CD's. We only noted this after I went looking for our laptop VIAO CD's and saw there were 4, since this is a VIAO desktop I assume it has 4 also. Right now I am only installing the bare minimum to get through until we are ready to wipe it again. Yes, we get to wipe the drive again!

Posting with pictures will resume again as soon as we are up and running normal. I just don't want to take the time to reinstall everything if I'll have to do it in 2 days again. I have some really cool pictures from the Scottish Games! It was a really great event. I would have had more fun without the kids (they just get too tired). Over all I'm just a sucker for bagpipes. I'd love to learn to play, but a set runs around $500. WOW!

OUch!

For those friends of mine who aren’t OU fans, this is for you. Usually I can say it’s hard to be humble when you’re a Sooner, but right now I am rolling in meekness for my team. I am still rooting for them, and I have a lot of hope for this team. I just have to remind myself that when a team changes this much in a year it takes time, patience and a lot of work on their part and patients on mine as well. I will continue to say that in the past few years we were good, because of our defense. I will also say that Jason White only looked decent because he had really good receivers. Right now we just have got to relax on the passing on offense and we need to learn to defend it on defense.

To Austin: Regardless of where I went to school I am an OU fan, I am a Sooner. I grew up in Norman, and that is where my entire family graduated from, and had we remained in OKC that is where I would have graduated. OSU could never change that, not even for basketball. I wish your team the best this year.

It's Just Another Manic Monday

Jonathan survived having his wisdom teeth removed! He slept a lot yesterday. I’m just glad he felt well enough to go to work, because he is notorious for going even when he doesn’t. They only removed 2, and they were pulled, not cut. He ate a shake, 2 malts and some yogurt and watched Monte Python and the Holy Grail and slept. In the evening when the general started to wear off, he went and vacuumed the kitchen (of yes, we have nasty carpet in the kitchen) and loaded the dishwasher. When I asked him not to over do it and not wear himself out, he was sweet enough to listen and sat back down. Usually he will ignore me and go until he drops.

The kids behaved really well in the lobby. Our only problem was that Victoria left a Tinkerbell from a Happy Meal in the lobby. She didn’t have breakdown, but came close. Today when I picked up the mail I was wondering who would be sending us a package. Dr. Scott Harrington’s office in Tulsa sent us Tinkerbell! That was beyond sweet. They had good service (very short wait), a nice atmosphere, Jonathan feels good and they sent us Tinkerbell! What an Oral Surgeon. If he ever needs the top 2 out, I know we will go back.

We did skip giving Victoria a lesson yesterday. This is one of the things I love about home school. We work it around our schedule. We may even add a lesson this Saturday to make up for it. Even at that, since we are only in kindergarten curriculum the lessons rarely require more than 1 ½ hours!

How Smart Is Your Right Foot?

I got this in an e-mail and I had to share it.

How Smart is your right foot?

You must try this--it's amazing and takes only seconds. How Smart is Your Right Foot? This is so funny that it will boggle your mind. And you will keep trying it at least 50 more times to see if you can outsmart your foot, but you can't.

1. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction. I told you so...And there's nothing you can do about it!!

Try it with your left too, it just requires more concentration then I'm willing to give to fight it.    

Poll Question

Cam Edwards has a poll posted and I would like to recommend that any interested person visit his site and participate in.  The poll asks “Is America On a Decline?”  The post is listed as “THE DOWNFALL OF AMERICA?”.  This can be located on his sidebar more easily.  Currently the vote stands at 70% NO and 30% YES.  What do you think?

NEW LINKS

UPDATED

I have added a few new links, plus the knowledge to link my text. I’ve already mentioned the Photo Album. I have also added links to Rush Limbaugh’s web site (I know I’m crazy, but I love Rush). I’ve also added a link to Homestar Runner, Homestar is a cartoon site that is very funny and popular among Christian College students. My personal recommendations are Strong Bad Emails (check out “DRAGON” and then play the Trogdor game) and the first few Teen Girl Squad toons.

In the links I have added 2 blogs I frequently read (though I may not post often). One is Cam Edwards blog. Cam is the Host of the NRA News, the Internet news show, which is also on satellite radio. I began listening to Cam when he started filling in for Mike McCarville on KTOK in OKC. I have also added my friend Jeremy Smoot’s blog. Jeremy is an old 4-H friend and a super nice guy, with some good thoughts, questions and laughs on his blog. I even click the link to his wife Tiffany’s where I often get a smile from the things she writes( you guys are cute)!

There will be more to come!

UPDATED HERE

I have also added my 4-H friend Austin’s blog. I gave him the nickname Auz E. Moto, the hunchback of the OSU bell tower, years ago and he has run with it ever since. He has good info on the fair tax and you can laugh at his racquetball story too.

The Maxwell Family Reunion Site is also being posted for family to check back for information on next years FUN!

The Weekend

We have an exciting weekend ahead of us. There a three major things going on between now and Monday.

1. Right now we are debating going to the Scottish Games in Tulsa. If we go that will be a blast! I figured out which tartan is Jonathan’s, he think it would be really cool to have a kilt. Here is the tartan for his Mom’s side and his Dad’s. They are surprisingly similar.

2. We have to figure out which church we are going to visit this weekend.

3. Jonathan is having his wisdom teeth removed Monday around noon. This is a very recent development and he is in a lot of pain. We are pretty sure he has an abscessed tooth. Yeah! His face is swelling and it hurts. Does anyone have any wisdom teeth removal stories that I can gross or freak him out with?

John Roberts

Okay, my family gets frustrated with my obsession with politics. Perhaps it’s because my passion for politics is as sick as the fact that I think working Calculus problems can be fun. There is just a sick pleasure to both. I just want to inquire to any friends, who would like to post, what your thoughts are regarding the John Roberts hearings.

I know there is a great deal of confidence on the Republican side that he will be a constitutionalist, which is what I want. I’m personally not sold on him yet. I’m also disappointed that he is being selected to follow William H. Rehnquist, as the chief justice. I was seriously hoping for that selection to come from within the current group of justices as either Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. I kind of thought it was a bit of a slap in the face to these fine justices.

I am also questioning why we are pandering to the democratic minority on our justice selections. The last time I checked the American people have elected more conservatives (lately I’m using that term loosely) to the House, Senate and the Presidency. If the majority of Americans want a more conservative country I think we have a right to want that in the courts too. Of course I disagree with the labeling of constitutionalist judges as conservative (even if they are). I know for a fact that their job is to interpret the law (ie. constitutioanlist) and I am tired of them legislating as a bunch of activist (on most judicial levels) from the bench. When they create law by their rulings (which they aren’t supposed to do) those rulings are almost impossible for us to overturn legislatively. It’s gotten out of control and should be stopped. Out with the activist! In with the constitutionalist! I just hope Roberts is as strict a constituionalist as they think he is.

PURPLE POWER!

I love my new glasses! They are different for me (thank you Trina for pointing them out to me). I always go the safe, slightly preppy route. Check out the old vs the new. This time I went different. Heck, I went PURPLE! I thought it was a bit funny that I chose these glasses about the same time my friend Jeremy’s wife got her new glasses. She was just as excited, she even blogged about hers too. Forget conventional go for different. I like being different; I’m not ashamed to be a little perky! These glasses are so me. It didn’t even hurt my feelings when Jonathan told me that Victoria would look at pictures of me years from now and make fun of my glasses. I accept that she will, I’m her mother, she’ll make fun of me for being alive (isn’t that what most kids do when they look back at their parents when they were young). I don’t doubt she’ll make fun of me for the spike I had during my last pregnancy too. That’s what I’m here for, ammo.

I LOVE BUBBLE WRAP

I know it’s Wednesday, and the weekend is on the horizon. Here is something fun to get you through.

NEW PHOTO ALBUM

Something new to the blog is listed in the links! We know have a web photo album! I will update it frequently with photos the family, the house or anything I find cool. A big thanks to my 4-H buddy Jeremy for telling me about http://www.photobucket.com/.

Family Update

I know I haven’t posted anything truly thought provoking or completely fascinating, but I have on first objective, to update many people on what is going on with my family.

Her is the general update since the move.

We moved at the end of July and we have moved to my own personal little heaven. Neighbors (yes, plural) have brought us cookie, rice crispy treats, flowers and a book on the history of B'Ville. Our neighborhood is beautiful, full of history and kids, and it’s very quiet. Unlike OKC it takes me 5-10 minutes to get ANYWHERE in town. How cool is that! Luckily the things I miss from OKC are in Tulsa, and if traffic is right you can get to most anything in 40-55 minutes. I’ve been stuck in OKC traffic longer than that.

We really haven’t begun our church search yet. There are 3 independent Christian Churches in B'Ville, 1 in Dewey (which is practically part of B'Ville), and 1 in Tyro, KS and 1 in Owasso (both 30 minutes for here).

We are home schooling Victoria now. We are starting her with the Kindergarten curriculum, but we may finish in the first trimester of the school year. We are using two curriculums, My Father’s World and Saxon Math. We are in the middle of week 2. It’s going well.

Jackson is cutting teeth and getting bigger. He is 29 lbs., which is 6.4 lbs less then Victoria. His vocabulary is growing really fast. If we could just get him to understand that hitting and throwing is bad and not to scream in stores, that would be great.

Jonathan’s job is going well, except for the fact that IT still hasn’t got his second terminal working right, which is inhibiting his work on one of the projects he is heading. They may be moving to 4/10’s (working 4 day-ten hours a day) the first week of October. It isn’t official, but they are trying. We would love to have 3-day weekends every week!

I am taking this year off from school, but the first week of October I am going to take an upholstery class at Tri County Tech. I have 3 chairs I want to recover and a futon I would love to build cushions for (I hate that futon mattress). I have also found a new addiction, Rachel Ray’s 30-Minute Meals! I love it! I also got new glasses this week, and they are way cute. I’ll have Jonathan take pictures to post tonight. This will also give photos for those friends of mine who can’t believe I have relatively long hair (okay, long for me).

On the house front our first major task will be putting in a utility room. Our washer is upstairs, where a shower used to be, and our dryer is downstairs in the kitchen where their had been a range (their is a drop-in in the island now). This fantastic weather is making me itch to go work in the yard, but their are more important things to do.

Keep me posted on events and activities with your families! We miss you all!

MY CUTE KIDS

Here are recent pictures of Jackson and Victoria.

Dance, Baby, Dance!

UPDATE! (Again)
Above is a picture of Victoria dancing on the street during our evening walk. This is what I mean, about dancing to the music in her head. It's just so cute.

Victoria begins dance and tumbling class tonight. She will be doing ballet, tap and tumbling. This child is desperate to have and outlet. She dances to the phone ringing, the doorbell ringing, any song that only she can hear in her head and anything on the radio or TV. She’s crazy, but tonight she get to be crazy with a whole class of 3-5 year olds. I am taking the digital camera and I emptied it. Hopefully this will be the motivation to try and post pics!

-Update-

Here is Jackson being cute in the waiting area. I'll post something of Victoria from dance in a couple of weeks, we are only allowed into class one week of each month.