Lottery

K decided yesterday afternoon he wanted to buy a lottery ticket for the mega millions drawing - also last night.   We rode our bikes up to the new gas station in front of our neighborhood so he could buy them.  I waited outside with the bikes while he went inside to make his picks.   The gas station was busy (terrific peoplewatching!) and he'd never bought lotto tickets (other than scratch off) so it took him a little while to purchase them.  I remember the one time I bought tickets with my friend Mimi, we saw the forms and had no idea where to begin, and other people came in and had a whole lingo to very quickly purchase theirs.    Everything is a learning process the first time...

He bought his tickets and we headed home.   I can honestly say that is the first time I've ever ridden my bike to a gas station.  I grew up too far out of town to ride anywhere but a friend's house.

We knew we had no shot in winning, but enjoyed the bike ride.

I looked at the winning numbers just now and out of his 3 picks (5 numbers + megaball for each) he got ONE right...the news had said we had a better chance of getting struck by lightning.  It is fun to dream about what we'd do if we won.  


we had fun riding our bikes up to the gas station to buy the tickets!

High Pass

This week was chaotic.  We had 2 different people coming out to fix things at the house, and it ended up that each day they were coming was one of the days that Kevin had to go to school, the days they couldn't come he was home all day - how does it work out that way?

Almost everything is fixed at the house and he took his written comprehensive exams on Monday.  It was a huge weight lifted to have those tests behind him!  He wrote for a solid 3 hours on 3 different questions (one from each professor on his committee).    I can see that he's started to relax this week since they are over, and its been great to see.  He's been prepping for it since Christmas break and devoted all of his time over spring break (except the day trip to Woodville) to study for it.

He got the news yesterday that he passed and not just passed but got 'high pass' marks.  Congrats sweetie!!    I got a bottle of wine on the way home to have with dinner and toast his success.   The real celebration will have to wait until the end of the semester as he's still getting caught up on his classes.  I know it is a relief to him to have this hurdle behind him.

We watched Tower Heist last night, very funny and enjoyable.   I was not expecting to see Matthew Broderick.  

I'm hoping K can take a break tonight so we can see Hunger Games.  We rarely go to the movies anymore, so it says a lot that I want to go to see it (he is usually the one wanting to go to the movies) and I CANNOT WAIT!  I've read all 3 books, and actually reread the first one since I'd picked it for my book club.

house annoyances

Our house is annoying me.  The weekend before last it rained really hard and I got back from the store to be greeted with water dripping from the ceiling.   We thought it was something wrong with the roof, turns out its not the roof but a pipe connecting to a vent that comes out of the roof that is leaking. It should be an easy fix but is so far back in the rafters that it is tough to get to, and its the part of the ceiling that is two-stories tall so its way up there.   We were hoping to get it fixed before this week's rain but weren't able to so we spent a good part of Saturday trying to find a way to do a temporary fix.  We had 2 options - put something over the vent to prevent water from getting in or put something under the bend in the pipe (in the attic) to catch the water.  We looked at both options and finally decided we couldn't do either - we had the ladder out and climbed up to look at the roof but just couldn't do it.   Even if I can get myself onto the roof (at the garage), I don't think I could get to the house roof -- too short, little upper body strength - and K is not good with heights so there is no way.   We went to the attic and looked at that option, I thought about it and tried to balance on the rafters but way up front is a big A/C tube that I couldn't seem to get over or under and could just picture my foot (or worse, all of me) going through the attic floor - ceiling of the house. I hate to admit defeat but we realized the likelihood was that we'd make something worse, and might not only have to fix the pipe (and possibly other things) but fix one of ourselves too....so we just had to hope for the best with the rain this week and got it scheduled to get fixed later this week.  They'll also have to repair the ceiling since there are water stains.  While we're dealing that issue...I come home from work yesterday, and K has a lamp on the kitchen table.  It turns out that one of the breakers won't stay put so most of the kitchen lights don't work, neither does the living room fan which we use all the time.  It worked that morning for each of us, I know I didn't eat in the dark, but when he went to turn on the light in the kitchen for dinner it went out, and he went out to the circuit breaker but every time he flips it it flips right back.... I know these are very minor things and all part of home ownership, I just can't believe they both happened so close to one another.  I wonder what other fun awaits us...really annoying part is that our house is not old at all. I do thank my lucky stars that we are able to get someone in here to fix each thing and just have to make arrangements to do so.

Day Trip

I had a three day weekend this weekend, so we decided to take advantage of it and take a day trip to somewhere that K has been wanting to go for years.    He's been talking about a restaurant called the Pickett House in Woodville, TX (about 90 miles away from us).  Since its so far away we've never made it up there - either we don't have time, we do have time but I don't want to sit in the car, or like last year it got too hot to enjoy it since most of what we want to do there is outside.   No excuses this time, the weather was nice and having the day off work it was the perfect day to head up there.

We had a great time.    Right by the restaurant is a small historic village that you can walk through and see what life was like in the late 1800s.  Exploring this area is why we wanted to go before it got too hot.   We had a good time seeing the different buildings and offices and I am so thankful the dentist office has come a long way since then!   My favorite building was the one-room school house.   As soon as I saw it, I said it was just like the Little House on the Prairie books, and had to laugh when another woman walked in and said the same thing.  We really enjoyed seeing all of the personal items and tools that were on display, and I know K wanted to look in more detail at the books they had in the school house.

We walked around until we were hungry, then went to the restaurant.   The food is served boarder-style (again, looking at what life was like in the late 1800s) and the menu is the same every day- fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, sides, and cobbler for dessert.  It was good, and I know K loved the fried chicken.  He had flown up here with his parents as a kid and still remembers how good the fried chicken was!    The food was all really good and we had to watch ourselves since its all-you-can-eat.   K was pleasantly surprised with the peach cobbler, he doesn't think he's ever eaten cobbler before.....

After we ate, we walked around the parts of the village we hadn't seen yet and then headed back home.  I really enjoyed the outdoor museum and need to find more of them.   It was laid back and I feel I learned something too :)

Right near Woodville,we stopped at a u-pick-it strawberry place and got some delicious strawberries, and even made some of them into smoothies that night.

We need to take more day trips, it was a great way to spend the day and didn't cost too much since we started and ended the day at home.

freeze those shells

We made some delicious gumbo today. I love being able to make my own stock and made use of a hint I'd learned on the internet.   I froze the shells from the times we've had shrimp this year and used those for the stock - which gave us many more shells than we usually have and let me start the stock in the morning, even though I hadn't gone to the store yet.

The shells from the shrimp we used in the gumbo will go in the freezer for the next time we make stock...

I am not a good cook by any means, so have to share whenever I have a cooking tip :)

Rainmaker

We may've just guaranteed a rainy spring and summer for everyone.....we got a sprinkler system installed last week.    We're pretty excited about it, this way we can keep our yard alive and not spend what felt like every night moving sprinklers around.  We did that last summer and could NOT do it again this year.  I didn't get to see the installation, but it went pretty quickly...here's hoping I learn to operate it as quickly.

Its been a rainy weekend in Houston.  We rearranged the living room today, and it looks so much bigger.   I love a no-cost rearrangement.  Down the road we'll want to get some different furniture to better fit the space, but for now, just took some work on rearranging the room.


Ever since I thought of the blog post, 'rainmaker' I've had the matchbox 20 song stuck in my head...whatever happened to them?

I want to boycott daylight savings time!   All day I've been finding myself going, is it that late already?  

Weekend recap

It was a busy weekend at the Tucker house, a great weekend, just a busy one.

We spent most of Saturday running errands and cleaning up the house.

We made signs for the found dog.  Poster board and markers from the store – when is the last time I’d bought poster board?   The part we hadn’t figured out was how to make the sign stand up.  I’d thought of the fence planks we used to have or some kind of sticks and K improved on the idea by thinking of looking for scrap wood from some of the building sites near our house.  We found some wood already cut into a point (easier to push into the ground) and nailed it to another piece to make it taller away from the ground (easier to see).  I’m terrible at using a hammer, but we got them in there. K even got to use his saw to cut the piece down to a workable size.   He loves a good home project, I'm still a bit terrified of spinning blades!   My block handwriting is pretty uneven but it is legible and easily seen from inside a car.  We put it out yesterday afternoon, and hoped for the best.   I checked when I drove by today and the sign was still standing, success!

We finished Saturday by watching Hanna - great action movie, and I liked the actress so much more than in Atonement.  We'd picked up candy bars at the store to enjoy with the movie, not great for the diet...but an occasional snickers is oh so good...

Today we were busy with yard work in the morning.  The bushes got a much-needed trim.  I can see over them now!  

Later in the day I went to my long-awaited massage.   I’d scheduled it purposefully a little while after the conference so I could look forward to it and really treat myself after that stressful week was over.   Kevin will use his after this comp exams – we bought them both w/groupons.   It was well worth the wait, so relaxed now..

After my massage, we went to enjoy the *beautiful* weather on the patio of a nearby bar.  I finally got my crawfish fix and we spent the afternoon catching up and people-watching.

It has been interesting having 2 dogs in the house.  Smokey enjoys his status as 'only child' and has not been happy to lose it, even temporarily.  He's pretty possessive of both of us and of his toys, so he's been in trouble more than usual the past few days.   He's so much bigger than the found dog and has to play nice.   The dog is really cute, though may be too small a dog for us. I also didn't realize how good it is that S never has accidents in the house, this dog did  - not sure if its because he's in a different place or that he's not totally housebroken, but it got old really quick.   We have decided that for now, we are a one dog household.  We may get a second dog one day, if we ever do we'll have to do a trial period to see if S can get used to it, he does NOT like change.... 

THE SIGN WORKED!  A guy called us this evening and came to get the dog.  He was house sitting for his aunt and the dog got out.  The timeline and dog description all matched up.  So glad we could help the dog get home, he and his sis both got out...I'd be devastated if Smokey got out and I didn't know where he was, hope they find his sister...

Animal Magnet

Animals LOVE Kevin and keep finding him.  I hope this doesn't become an annual occurrence.  Last March, a bird randomly appeared in the yard when he was home and today, March 1 (see a trend?) a little white dog started following him and Smokey on their walk.   They weren't even on their way home yet, but the dog followed them for the whole walk and all the way home.  

K called me wondering what to do, he's clearly a lost pet..  I've seen signs up in the neighborhood but they are mostly for FOUND pets.   He took him to our vet to see if he's microchipped - nope, and no collar or tags or anything. Do yourself, and your pet, a favor - put tags on them!

We've already put a notice on our e-bulletin board for the neighborhood and will put up signs if needed.  Our guess is that people may not even realize that he's missing until tonight if they were at work all day...

He's a cute fellow, just not what K needed today.  He has class today and was busy getting ready for that.  We're also not sure how this dog and Smokey will get along, they seem ok now but have snarled/snapped at each other.   Smokey is very spoiled and loves his only child status.  Luckily my boss is really understanding and let me leave early so I could puppy-sit.   

I'm going to take this as a trial period to see if we want a second dog :)

Poor puppy, he's tired....