Goodbye, Tasha

My mom's dog Tasha was killed by a coyote yesterday. It was awful. I was over at my mom's house, and my mom happened to be looking out the back window, and saw the coyote snatch her and run off. I went after them, and found Tasha. My mom and I took her to the pet hospital, but it was too late.

I'm not a real dog person, but Tasha was my favorite dog. She provided a lot of entertainment in her four years.
We kept her a lot when my mom went out of town. She and Brent loved to antagonize each other.

We called her "the circus dog," because she loved to do tricks, including jumping through her hoop. We always joked about setting the hoop on fire...that would make her a real "circus dog."

I'll miss you, Tasha.

Snail Mail

Hail Storm

If you live in Oklahoma City, you know about the hail storm that rolled through town on Sunday. Unfortunately, the worst of it was not far from us. Our next-door neighbor, who has lived in his house since it was built, said that there has not been hail like this in the 60 years he's lived here. You can't make out the damage from this picture, but our cars are covered in dents, both of our windshields are cracked, and the two tail lights were broken on the green car. My mom says that she doesn't regret coming to visit us on Sunday, even though it meant her car got pelted, too.

There is my mom's feet. Can you believe our yard was covered with hail that size?

Brent scoffed at my insistance that we take the standard ruler and hail picture, but it's got to be done. These were just a few of the hailstones that my mom collected a little while after the storm.

Last, but not least, here is a little video I shot while the hail was coming down. Brent laughs at the comments that my mom and I make.

Cleaning Out the Pantry

Ok, this is pretty embarrassing to tell on myself, but here it is anyway... I decided to clean out the pantry yesterday. I'm wanting to do some more cooking, so this seemed like a good idea. I was also thinking about something my mom said at Christmas. She was talking about how my step-grandmother used to get mad at she and Joe when they threw away things from her pantry that were expired. My mom let all of us know that if we see something in her pantry that is expired, that we have not only the right but the obligation to throw it away. With that in mind, I thought that I had better go through the pantry and look at the expiration of everything, throwing away all expired food. I found a number of items that expired sometime in 2008...expected. Some items that expired before that...a little embarrassing. Then, I came upon this canister of Quaker Oats. After peering at the bottom of the container, I exclaimed to Brent, "We have a winner."
Yes, you are reading that correctly...these Quaker Oats were best before September, 21, 1998. 1998...I wasn't even married then. I was in college. I realized that means that I had these expired Quaker Oats in my college apartment, moved them with me when I married Brent to Rhode Island, moved them to our second apartment in Rhode Island, moved them to my mom and Joe's house for 3 months when we moved back to Oklahoma, moved them to our apartment here in OKC, then to our current house. 5 moves...after they expired!

Tellingly, the canister is still about 3/4ths full. It is clear I am not a big Quaker Oats fan. In fact, I'm not exactly sure why I bought them. Maybe, to try to make my mom's Chocolate Chip Oatmeal bars?

Sadly, these Quaker Oats will not make the next move with us. They made the final move to the garbage can last night. And I promised myself to look at the expiration of items in my pantry more frequently.

More Pictures from Our Front Yard

This is apparently a bomb disposal trailer. Again, not exactly what you want to see in your neighborhood.
There is the police car barricading us in.

And there is a pile of junk removed from the (alleged) bomb-maker's house.

Glad We Are Moving! (or Living in an Explosive Neighborhood)

The following series of photos may have you asking yourself some questions, like...

What is that narrow yellow tape streaming from your handrail to the tire of your car?

Why is there a giant tent in your neighbors yard?

Why is the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Bomb Squad-mobile parked directly in front of your house?

Is that a bomb detecting robot across the street?

The answers to these questions and more can be found at:

http://www.newsok.com/man-arrested-okc-residents-evacuated-in-explosives-search/article/3332386?custom_click=lead_story_title

And yes, the picture in that article is also of our two cars. Apparently, the neighbor two doors down has been making bombs in his free time. We woke up this morning to find some cop cars in the street. As the operation became more elaborate, Brent stepped outside to ask if we need be concerned. He was just in time to see the bomb-detecting robot enter our neighbors house. This is not necessarily something anyone wants to see. We were told that they evacuated the next door neighbor, and we could leave if we want, but should be fine. Quite an interesting day!

Traci with the Fringe on Top

I got my haircut yesterday. I told the hair stylist that he could do whatever he thought would look good, but I was still a little shocked when I ended up with bangs, or as he called them, "fringe." I haven't had bangs since Junior High. Well, I was a little shocked at first, but I think I'm warming up to them...maybe. We'll see...hopefully, they will grow on me. (No pun intended.) I ran into a friend at City Bites after the appointment, where I was picking up some sandwiches at lunch. He first admitted that it looked a little "punk rocker," but by the time that we left, he said that he was warming up to it. I called Brent to warn him, but he was still a little surprised at first, but said that he thinks, he will like it when he gets used to it. If we don't warm up to it, atleast, my hair grows really fast. ;)

Don't See This Everyday

What is that? If you said a pickup truck full of prosthetic legs, you are correct. When we drove up after lunch, this truck was sitting there.

Notice the toes at the bottom of the picture. Also, one of them has a sock on it.

The Office

I can't wait for the next season of the Office. It's my favorite show. We just got last season's DVD, which has been making me laugh, especially some of the deleted scenes, which I can't believe got cut. Here's the Olympic commercial that made me laugh so hard, for your entertainment. Enjoy!

DonorsChoose.org

Brent heard about DonorsChoose.org a little over a year ago on the local news. It's a really cool site where teachers from across the country can post things that they would like to have in their classroom and people can go on and choose to fund these projects. It's really neat, you can search by amount or by school or a keyword in the project description. You can also just fund part of a project if it is too expensive to fund the whole. We have been funding some projects up in north Idaho where Brent went to school 8th-12th grade. They don't do the best job of funding education up there. In fact, a few years ago, his school district voted not to pass the Maintenance and Operations Levy. This was to fund basic things to keep the school running, pay the bills, clean the toilets, etc... The school district had to go to a 4-day school week to try to save money. I'm not kidding...they don't go to school on Friday. Well, anyway, this has encouraged us to fund some projects in north Idaho. We've found some in Sandpoint, a town about 30 miles from where Brent lived. After we funded a project to get some rockets for an elementary Talented and Gifted program class to launch, they sent us a thank you envelope with pictures and notes from the kids. Here's one of the pictures of some of the kids outside with their rockets to launch.

And this was one of the cute thank you notes from one of the kids in the class. If you are interested in looking at DonorsChoose.org, here's a link: http://www.donorschoose.org/homepage/main.html

Also, if you want to fund one in North Idaho, the counties to look for are Bonner County and Boundary County.

Reaching Souls International

We went last night to the annual banquest of Reaching Souls International (formerly Jimmy Hodges Ministries International), which is a ministry that we have been involved with for a long time. (They are the one's that I was able to go to Zimbawe with when I was in college.) They do a lot of neat things, and you can check them out at http://www.reachingsoulsinternational.com/.

Every year it is a powerful reminder of how blessed we are here in America and how much we take for granted. One of the things that they do is support African pastors, so that they can work full-time in the ministry. The pastors are paid $60 a month...this supports they and their family. It is going up to $65 a month in 2009 due to inflation around the world. They had one of the supported pastors from Rwanda speak last night, and he said how wonderful it was to have that support from Reaching Souls, because most churches there did not have that kind of money to support a pastor and it is hard to do God's work when you and your family are starving. Wow! Really puts some things in perspective. $60 a month!

Watonga Cheese

Good news! If you were distressed like I was to learn that the Watonga Cheese Factory closed, don't despair. I've been told that they are going to rebuild by the fairgrounds. Also, the Watonga Cheese Festival in October will still take place. We, cheese-lovers, can all breath a sigh of relief. :)

Starting a Blog

Decided I should start a blog. Seems like the thing to do. I'm hoping I can keep it up to date, but we'll see.