That was close.....

Um, okay, when I said "bring it on" I meant thunderstorms, NOT TORNADOES!

About 1:00 am the siren goes off. Good thing I was awake from the storm and hail or I wouldn't have noticed it. We turn the TV on to find out the "hook" is a few miles away, headed in our direction.
Then we lose power. I hate that, not having any information. So we get in the closet and come back out, not feeling really threatened but I was concerned. I was trying to remember all the signs a tornado was near that you learned when you were a kid. All I could remember was all is quiet, no rain and lots of quick flashes of light. Well, it was doing that! It bypassed us though, hit a neighborhood southwest of us where we had our rent house.
It was too close for comfort in my book. Thanks goodness we really didn't have anything more than water in the garage. Of course that soaked the boxes in there and who knows what's ruined. Mostly books and we tried to get those unpacked but it's a nasty sight. And we discovered water filling up our floor vent in the entry way last night. Can't figure that one out either. Maybe it had something to do with our flooded front porch.
Needless to say I didn't get much sleep and woke up in a "fine mood" that just got better once we discovered the soaked garage.

Welcome to Oklahoma.

This week at Hacienda Brannock

Addicted to felt:
I've just added some bracelets to my Etsy store. I've been working on several things, finding cute ways to utilize felt.

Maggie:
Well, she still has infections in both ears. Not good. She's on a stronger antibiotic and if this doesn't work then off to the ENT specialist.

Insurance:
SUCKS! We finally get our "real" policies and they cancel Maggie since they didn't get their premium this month....that THEY deduct from my account. Figure that one out. So I have to redo some paper work, no biggie (I hope). I just wish it was in place since her new antibiotic was $92. I can send in a claim but it's the whole principle really. Hey, I don't need any ammunition to go off on insurance companies. (Was that a pun?)

Weather:
What a beautiful day today! I am SO ready for warmer weather. Not to mention those good ol' Oklahoma thunderstorms of yore. Bring it on!!

I hate Walmart

I hate shopping at Walmart and I hate that the closest place for us to buy groceries is Walmart. If I can, I will go a few miles farther to the first grocery store, but when I need something in a hurry (with kids!) that is where I have to go.
So there we are today, specifically because we needed to get new phones and a new service plan. Ours expired March 15 and ironically both of our phones crapped out shortly after. We thought we could just go in, pick out our phones and be done with it.
Oh no.
We were told that when we switched our numbers to another region it automatically renewed our contract for 2 years. WHAT? No one told us that. When I called to change the numbers they didn't say that nor did they bring it up when I asked when our contract expired (March 15, 2008 is what they said). So the Walmart gal gets on the phone with AT&T and she talks to them, we talk to them and finally they agree to let us renew now (upgrade really).
So that is worked out, but since our old plan is no longer available she can't key it in to ring us up, she needs an over ride from a manager. She calls for one several times, trying several different ways. Not one manager ever showed up. We didn't want the higher rate plan because it would be an additional $20 a month and we don't even use all the minutes in the plan we have. So she keyed it in at a higher rate plan just to get it to go through and then back on the phone with AT&T to make sure we still get our old plan. We walked away with new phones, our same plan and didn't pay a thing. (I guess we'll see come our first bill).
So, how long were we at the Walmart phone counter with two small kids? An hour and a half. Probably spent 2 hours total in that stupid store.
AT&T fixed their problem.
Walmart just added to theirs.
I hate Walmart.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Okay, I know it's tomorrow.... but we thought fixing the big meal today would be easier.
So we put on the Irish music and poured the Guinness.

St. Patrick's Day has always been a biggie to us but now it has more meaning to it.
Maggie was conceived on St. Patrick's Day, she's our little Guinness baby, and she'll be 16 months old tomorrow as well.

So with that said, crank up The Pogues, avoid green beer and kiss a blarney snake.

House of Sickies

Well, this has been a crappy week for our house.
Max and I have been gross for a week. Poor Maggie has had the upchucks since Thursday night but no other symptoms. I hate seeing her so miserable. I can't wait for normalcy around here again where my kids EAT. (Well, Miss Maggie was already a picky eater much to my chagrin).
And the real kick in the gut was how nice the weather was all week. Perfect for playgrounds and running around. But no, we were prisoners in our home.

I got an email from a friend in Austin today. She talked about her son's varsity basketball games with Dripping Springs and Marble Falls. I got super homesick for Austin at that point. I miss it. I miss the surrounding areas. I miss West in September. I miss Fredericksburg in October. I miss Dripping Springs in April. Austin had an annual "fill in the blank" every weekend. Sure, we didn't get to go to everything every weekend. But it was nice to have that choice.

Let's get painting!

I'm so ready to start painting this house!!

We looked at paint samples this weekend and I have a pretty good idea what I want to do for Maggie's room. Still up in the air about Max's. Lots of color!

In Austin our house looked like a Mexican restaurant. Our living room was purple, kitchen was yellow, hallways minty green, master bedroom dark green. We had dark green carpet and three giant geckos painted going up wall between our kitchen and living room. We can't wait to do the same here! (Same concept, different colors).

Let the Brannockfication of this house begin!!

Welcome!

Okay, this is my first blog site. I hope I can become a creative blogger like my husband.