Phone Photos

I recently got a new phone, which prompted me to download all of the photos from my old phone to my Mac. It is always amusing to see what is on my phone gallery -- I will go for months without ever really looking to see what is lurking there. There is always something interesting, that's for sure.

The following photos tell what we have been up to. Perhaps this post will fill in some of the gaping holes that this fairly neglected blog seems to have.

August 27 -- We saw MercyMe in concert before the Texas Rangers ballgame.

We had fun at the game even if we were all the way up in the nosebleed section. And we were still smiling despite the loss to Anaheim. The Rangers have been really fun to follow this season, even for those of us who are not die-hard baseball fans.

Mr. Smith has been a St. Louis Cardinals fan for as long as he can remember. As a young boy, he would tune in his transistor radio past all the static to the to hear Jack Buck call the games. I need to add that he has long been in the "the-National-League-is-better-than-the-American-League" camp; however, after living in Texas, he now has a favorite AL team. I think that the Cards will always be his favorite favorite. Let's just say that it has been an interesting World Series. My husband is a tormented, conflicted fan. The upside is that despite what happens in Game 7 tonight, he will be happy, well... sort of.

Is this really photo-worthy? I'm not sure, but it made us laugh.

Over Labor Day weekend, we headed to Waco for a visit with Mitchell and the Houston Thompsons. This summer, we endured 71 days (thankfully, not consecutive) of temperatures at 100 degrees or hotter, so it was a pleasant surprise to finally have temps in the low 80s that weekend. Ahhhh!

In Waco, we visited Heritage Homestead and got to do some fun hands-on activities and crafts.

We got to meet Pretty. I think she is smiling for the camera.

Of course, no trip to Waco is complete without a visit to the Dr. Pepper Museum.

I'm a Pepper. He's a Pepper. She's a Pepper. We're a Pepper. Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too?

There are several apps on my phone for taking and/or editing photos. 

The WeCam app is fun to play with, but Millie Girl looks kinda sad about it.

Pepper likes eating apples. What an unusual little beast!

Bartholomew found himself on the wrong side of the wine grotto door and could not figure out how to shoehorn his portly form through the bars. Isn't that a pathetic face?

It's apple butter season! We found a nearby orchard to buy apples from, but were puzzled by the box. Texas apples = California Tomatoes? We now have a pantry well-stocked with homemade apple butter and apple sauce. Maybe it's really Tomato Butter, and I am the one who is confused. Whatever the stuff is called, we should be set for a couple of years!

I get to see this face every night as I get ready for bed. Bart jumps up on my sink and loudly, yet politely, requests a drink from my faucet. Never mind that he has his own pet water fountain -- complete with filtered water. 

My kitty-boy is a dork. I am a dork, too, for taking this picture of him and adding it to my blog. 

So, all of the pictures are deleted from my old phone. The new phone has an even better camera so that should be put to good use. There will undoubtedly be more silly cat poses to capture. And who knows what else my new phone's camera will shoot?  We'll see...

Off-the-Wall

It's been a slow news day.
A slow week?
A slow month?

October is winding down, and I have not shared one word via INOKWACA about what's been going on with the Smiths. There has been a lot going on, but you just haven't read about it here. Maybe the daily goings-on at our house just isn't newsworthy stuff.

I have been busily tending my daily household/wife/mother/neighbor/friend/homework assistant/etc. duties, so I have not had time to write much this month. Although I have written a few entries, I didn't publish them. Sometimes I do that. It helps for me to get my thoughts written down, but then I decide that nobody needs or wants to see what I wrote.

While I haven't exactly had time to sit and stare at the walls, one might draw that conclusion based upon today's entry. 


Have you seen or taken a Rorschach test? The Rorschach test or inkblot test is a psychological test in which the perception of blots of ink reveal one's personality characteristics or their emotional functioning.
  

We have a variation of the inkblot test built right into the Smith Haus. We call it the drywall mud test. Well, we really don't have a formal name for it at all. The Smith Mudblob test? The "Sheetrock Brand" All Purpose Joint Compound Weird Shapes Test? 

After living in our new house for over a year, we all realized that we were "seeing things." 


One evening, our dinner conversation turned to the images on the walls. Now how's that for an exciting table topic? We learned that we were seeing the same things in one room in particular. Most of the walls in our house have a normal knock down drywall finish; however, the master bathroom, guest bathroom, and kitchen walls have a skip trowel finish, which makes for some interesting shapes in the mud. I won't mention what room it is that has the most interesting images -- suffice it to say that it is a room that we all visit with some regularity. And of course, regularity is much preferred to irregularity.


I am not sure what I see on the wall reveals about me or my personality. We will have to analyze that another day. Probably not. Could it all mean that I might be a bit off-the-wall? Probably! I mean, I did take photos of the mud patterns and write about them on this blog. And I fully intend to hit the "publish" button this time. Those actions could be considered unusual, I suppose. 


Despite the fact that my reputation as a normal, sane individual is at risk, here are one dozen Smith mudblobs, as well as my personal interpretations: 

 A hat? A flying saucer?

 A rooster?

 I'm seeing an exotic bird here; perhaps "Kevin" from the movie Up.

 "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog..."

Lafayette the Bassett Hound from The Aristocats

 One fish

Two fish 

(No red fish or blue fish)

 A boot? Italy?

A cat? A boar? A catboar?

A turkey! (It is getting close to Thanksgiving, you know.)

A wren

 I am not sure what we agreed that we saw here, but it kinda looks like a map to me.

Or single-cell eukaryotic organisms? 

(Is it evident that I've been helping my 7th grade student prepare for a science exam?) 

Or maybe it's really just drywall mud.

Michigan/mitten

I must think a lot about food, pets, and travel -- well, travel to Michigan and Italy. And I find it interesting that I "see" nine of the twelve images as animals. So, what does it mean? Probably not much. I think that the drywall finishers simply had a good time playing in the drywall compound. Or it could be that I really have been too busy this month, and I am starting to see things.

I'll let you know if I start seeing any writing on the wall. I would really be concerned about seeing that, especially if the words are being written by a disembodied hand. King Belshazzar would likely have rather traded the message he received for my birds, cats, fish, and Michigan. ;-)

Counting Calories

"Sweet" is pretty much a one-word summary of the month of September. I really enjoy baking, so I had a lot of fun making the three Smithlings' favorite treats for their respective birthday celebrations. Eating the fruits of my labor was pretty fun, too!!!

I probably should not have done the calculations and added up the numbers of the calories that have been ingested over the past few weeks, but I did. Oh, my! I was shocked.

Liesey's Snickers/Hot Fudge cheesecake added up to 8,958 calories. It was divided 16 ways so that each serving packed 560 calories. Adding a dollop of homemade whipped cream added another 50 or 60 calories, give or take...

Millie Girl's German Chocolate Cat totaled 10,096 calories; divvied up sixteen ways for a total of 631 calories per serving. For those who added a scoop of Blue Bell ice cream at 190 calories/serving, the grand total equaled 821 calories. Anyone want seconds? 

The Birthday Boy's pumpkin pie added up to 2,240 calories or a mere 280 calories per serving. What a caloric bargain!

     8,958

   10,096 

+   2,240

  21,294 calories

Yikes!!!! It's a good thing birthday celebrations come once a year.

The birthdaze are over, the cake plate is empty, and now I'm feelin' a bit of a hangover -- over my waistband, that is.

Another Year Older and Wiser

We intended to embarrass the nineteen-year-old on "his" day by writing silly messages on his car windows. The problem is that our easygoing guy doesn't get bugged by anything; he just rolls with whatever comes his way.

Thankfully, the writing didn't get washed off by the rain until after our son had driven to UTA for his classes; however, the car windows were a smeary mess by the time he got home. Oh, well!

 According to the birthday boy, cake is overrated, so pumpkin pie was on the menu.

 I guess our singing was really bad and/or really funny...

 Can you tell it was indeed a HAPPY birthday?

M. received many funny greeting cards, but I have to share the one Millie chose for her brother:

78% of the people think you look like a monkey.

32% of the people think you smell like one, too.

You do the math.  Happy Birthday.

It's especially comical since math is Millie Girl's least favorite subject, so she wouldn't have added add up the numbers to see what the percentage equaled. She just had a hunch that the monkey business/smelly sentiment was perfect to share with her brother -- after all, he is a boy. AND she also figured her brother would approve of having statistics and such on a card. He did. :-)

In addition to the stack of birthday greetings to open, there were presents to unwrap, too.

Our oldest Smithling has always had this amazing ability to correctly guess what is inside each package before he opens it. This has been going on for years and years, ever since he was a little boy.  (I think that goes along with his analytical engineer brain.) He carefully studies/scrutinizes the shape, size, and weight of each box prior to opening it, and somehow ALWAYS guesses the contents correctly. This is somewhat frustrating for me, but amusing for him. Of course, I never let on that he is correct in his conjectures, as I wouldn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he's right until I absolutely have to.

M. methodically unwraps his gifts by slowly removing the tape so as not to rip the wrapping. Next, he carefully removes the paper and folds it neatly before looking at what was wrapped inside. This is something that greatly irritates his youngest sister. I think the big brother drags out the unwrapping ceremony a wee bit longer than it should take in a special effort to aggravate Millie all the more. When he finally sees what the gift is, he gives a knowing look as if to say, "Uh huh, I could see that one coming."

Well, two can play at this game. This year, I made a little more of an effort to throw him a curve ball by using odd sized boxes for his gifts. The birthday boy failed to correctly identify the gifts we gave him, four out of four times. Despite being w-r-o-n-g every single time, he was very happy with the gifts he received. Mission accomplished. The boy may be getting older, but chalk one up (or four?) for Mom this time around for being a wee bit wiser.

Happy 19th, Son!!!

The umTEENth Birthday Post

Ummm... umTEENth? Well, it's really only the second September birthday, but I liked the pun.

I briefly considered using "Teen Angel" as the title for this entry.  It seemed perfect since Grandma Betty always used to tell Miss Millie that she was an angel. One of our neighbors in Roseville observed that Millie likely was an angel, but she had horns holding up her halo.  Then I remembered the song "Teen Angel" from the late '50s about a young girl who was killed by a train. Teen Angel sounds pretty morbid. Scratch that title.

Whether she's an angel or not, our youngest daughter is now officially a TEENAGER! For one year, and one year only, all three Smith kids will be in their teen years. Please pray for us.

 No Pop-Tarts for this girl's breakfast. Tree-ripened bagels and schmear were on the menu.

Even though our newest teenager thinks her parents are silly, we are committed to carrying on the bagel tree tradition until our #3 Smithling moves out of the house. It's tradition!

"You may ask, how did this tradition start? I'll tell you. I don't know. But it's a tradition."
(Thank you, Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof.)

Oh! But I do know how the tradition began. A curious and creative three-year-old girl planted a bagel beside an apricot tree in hopes that the two would somehow cross and produce bagels. On her fourth birthday, bagels sprouted from that most amazing tree. We had her convinced that bagels grew on trees for many years. It was quite entertaining watching Millie look for bagel buds in anticipation of the annual bagel harvest.

The tradition must continue, even though the original bagel tree in in California and we are now transplanted in Texas. Millie is a good sport, and she tolerates our foolishness.

Chocolate chip, Cinnamon Crunch, Asiago, Cinnamon Raisin, Plain, Pumpkin, and a few other bagel flavors were ripe for the picking.

 A German Chocolate Cat was the cake of choice. Purr-fect!

 Happy THIRTEENTH, Millie Girl!

Happy Month o' Birthdays

It's September, the official birthday month of all three Smithlings, so that means we've been busy.  School, homework, and extracurricular activities place demands on our "normal" daily schedule, as it is.  Try adding in birthday fun, and things get more interesting. And the schedule gets a little more crowded; however, it's all good.

 Liesey Lou is always the first Smithling to get the party started with her celebration on the 9th of the month.

The birthday celebrant started out her day with a treat that we never, ever, ever, ever purchase, except for very special occasions. It'll be another 364 days until these sugar bombs show up in my grocery cart again. (And no, I didn't have one.)

Hmmmmm... It's good to know that these gems are "packed with real fruit." Artificial fruit would likely melt in the toaster and smell all plasticky.

 Birthday girl cover girl? She IS seventeen!

A b-day bouquet delivered to work is certain to make a girl smile!

Hooray for presents...

...and cake! (Cheesecake, that is.)