One Feisty Lady

My grandmother recently sent me this newspaper article from March 23rd, 1930.  This is a picture of her cousin, Louise Green.  I found it quite funny.  Maybe you will too!

Modern myths to the contrary, Louise Green, University of Oklahoma senior from Oklahoma City, takes her classes and the admonitions of her professors seriously.  Even to the point of going to her classrooms in an ambulance, if necessary.

That is what happened the other day, and now Louise is the pride and joy of her Kappa Alpha Theta sisters and the center of a campus controversy over a report that her professor had insisted that "a broken neck is the only excuse for absence."

Dr. S.M. Salyer, Louise's English professor insists "it must have been pure fiction." Anyhow he can't recall any such statement, despite the fact that The Oklahoma Daily university newspaper, published it.

Louise, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George M. Green, 1107 NW 19th Street, remembers only that the professor said, "Don't miss the examination."

Three days later she was still suffering from influenza, but crawled out of bed, called an ambulance and rode swiftly tot he campus.

She walked into the classroom all prepared for the examination.

And the quiz had been called off because  Dr Salyer himself was home in bed.

"I was sick." the professor says, and that is that.

*******************************

Must have been a slow news day, but I like way she thinks!

Where I've been...

I thought I should make some attempt to explain to you where I have been for the last few months.  In September I started doing something that had once been a huge part of my life.  After 5 years of not swinging a racquet or stepping foot on a court, I started playing tennis again.

It started off simple with a couple of lessons and then a couple hours on the ball machine.  I quickly decided that would not be enough to keep me satisfied.  What I really wanted to do was clinic with the juniors everyday, but that was not an option for obvious reasons, so I inquired about joining an interclub team.  Ok, inquired isn't the right term.  I demanded!  After a couple of weeks of hounding and stalking, the pro thought he had a team for me to join.  But first I had to audition by coming to one of their weekly clinics.  As the clinic was over, they literally told me that they would have to talk about me and that I should expect a call in the next few days.  I quickly received a call from a friend who was already on this particular team to see what I thought of the group.  She had also received a call from the captain to make sure I was "normal" whatever that meant.  Even though this process felt very high school, I needed to be on this team. 

Within a few days, I got the call that the team would like to invite me to be part of The Moon Valley Sets in the City.  Since, that day I have played about 3 days a week, with Tuesdays being interclub matches,  I started off pretty rocky with my nerves getting the best of me.  I jokingly call this old lady tennis, but damn, these ladies are good.  The team joke is the older your opponent, the better they are and if they are wearing a knee brace...then you're really in trouble!  After 7 matches I think I have finally kicked my nerves to the curb and I have actually started winning!

Here's a look at who I've been spending my time with lately:

me and Adrienne

Judy, Robin, Mary, Kathy, Adrienne, Gwen, and I

Nancy, me, Adrienne, & Kathy at our Christmas party

Adrienne, Lisa, Gwen, Kathy, and I

These girls are great and I have been having so much fun!  After all of the craziness of joining the team, Adrienne and I have become team captains.  

So now you know where I have been.  I am hoping to get back to regular blogging.  Did you know I just yesterday finished reading my first book since my tennis rebirth?  I will try to get things back in balance.

Happy New Year!  Can I still say that?

something to be thankful for...

The ladies of the OC are back tonight!  We've suffered through the Real Housewives of New York City and the latest horrors of the Housewives of Atlanta, but the OC women are my favorite!  It's been a long time since we've seen their antics and I have missed them! 

You can tune into Bravo tonight to catch them.  The OC premiere will follow the the reunion show for the ATL crew that looks like it could ending in fisticuffs..

Does anyone else love these women like I do?

The Swingset Project

A few months ago someone might have mentioned that my husband wasn't handy.  I have no idea who could have made those statements because he has proven himself to be quite handy indeed.

We assembled this swingset almost 2 years ago.  You might recognize it, it is the Costco standard model.  As you can see, we had a little trouble growing grass in the area.

Ok, a lot of trouble and wasn't just in the swingset area.  

So, my handy husband set out to remedy the problem.

He started by putting up this border around the perimeter.  It involved 24" rebar and was quite interesting to watch.  But he did get to use his saw so he felt very manly.

See how pretty that is?  See those stumps on the far side?  We picked those up in the neighborhood.  Now the boys have something else to potentially injure themselves on.

And it gets better...see this pile of rocks?

This is what 14 tons of pea gravel looks like.

The boys had a lot more fun than their daddy as it was his job to wheelbarrow the rocks to the swingset.

Finished product!

Isn't it fun?  Ok, it's 97% fun, the pea gravel removal from the house isn't really fun, but I will adjust.

Whoever said my husband wasn't handy clearly hasn't met my husband.

Erica 0 - Fire Ants 1

I take this break from my blogging hiatus to bring you this important message: do not mess with fire ants!  My encounter with these evil creatures started quite innocently.  The boys and I were playing in the front yard when I looked over and saw that the lantana had started growing over our boulders.  This is not something I would normally take upon myself, but I knew that there were clippers nearby so I grabbed them and went to work.  With Catcher's help I was quickly making progress, when OWWWWWWWW!  Both of us started screaming and jumping. It was only then that I noticed that he was missing his shoes, I later found out that his brother had thrown them on top of the house.  Great!  So screaming two that we are, I look down and see ants, I sprint into the house and start washing and applying cream.  If you have been reading this blog for awhile you know that Catch doesn't really do too well with any type of bite so you will understand my panic.  Turns out that I didn't need to worry about him.

This is my hand 36 hours after the incident.

Same hand just another angle.

And this is what my hand normally looks like just to compare.

It is now 56 hours after the incident and my hand is still swollen and fat.  You can trust that, in the future, instead of tending to the yard myself, I will be waiting for the gardner...my husband.  

And he says he doesn't like girls...

But I am starting to think otherwise.  We just returned from Kansas City where we met our newest family member, Charlye.  Campbell loved her and wanted to hold her, diaper her, bathe her, and feed her.

The other one just wanted to hit her, but he's 2, what do you expect?

More baby holding...

Like I said, that girl thing?  

I think he's over it.

Oh yeah, that was my idea.

Have you ever done something and almost instantly asked yourself, what was I thinking?? I can't even blame this on anyone else because it was completely and totally my idea. We just recently filled our sandbox with sand.  We've had said sandbox for almost 2 years so I figured it was time.  As you can see, the boys have had a blast.

I'm sure many of you have sandboxes and know where this post is going.

While it has provided several hours of play, it has also provided several hours, ok minutes, of clean up.  There is sand everywhere!

The End.