Baby, It's Cold Outside

Texas weather is notorious for being unpredictable. Snow in February? Why not!

We got a pretty decent snowfall when I visited home this weekend. I always love the snow. I attribute this to the fact that, though the South sees snow now and again during the winter, it doesn't often stick around long. Or sometimes it's more..."Texas snow"—that is, sleet.

My dog, Tucker, isn't quite sure what to think of the snow. To him it means cold, and it means something-weird-on-my-feet. I get quite a kick out of watching him tiptoe through it, doing his best to avoid keeping his feet in it too long, and taking the long way around big patches of it whenever possible.

Our other dog, Kelsi, doesn't seem to be phased by it. She has no problems walking in it or sitting in it, and she still makes her rounds on our property despite the cold white stuff.

The only real problem is the buildup of snow causing tree branches to break. And our driveway, which is basically just a paved hill. So when it gets icy, it's kind of unmanageable. (Though to that I say, what better excuse to stay indoors, watch movies, and drink hot chocolate?)

While Dad got out to try and clear off some driveway space, I busied myself taking pictures. Which of course I had to share with you guys.

So, here it is! My first Snow Day of 2011. Enjoy! I know I did.

Snowy clouds.

Pristine blanket of snow!

Kelsi makes her rounds.

Tucker's New Sweater

-a word+photo-told story by Sarah E. Thomas

-- -- -- -- --

Once upon a time, there was a small, energetic bundle of fur, excitement, and love.

This little bundle just so happened to be named Tucker.

Sometimes this particular bundle would find himself galavanting about outdoors on days where the weather was a little less than warm. It was on days like this when he ended up calling it quits sooner than he really wanted to, retreating to the door and barking to be let back in.

He loved being outside, but it didn't take much to cool his little short-haired body down.

But one day, while shopping for clothes, Tucker's loving and devoted pet human, Sarah, spotted an absolutely adorable little gray sweater. And it was made just for dogs!

"Mom!" she cried, ecstatic even as she held up the little item proudly. "Wouldn't Tucker just love this?"

Her mom nodded in response, already in line with a few things of her own.

Sarah beamed at the sweater, happy to find that it was indeed in the proper size to fit her little pup. The purchase was made and the sweater was added to her bag of clothes to be carted back to the house.

As soon as Sarah made it home, she had the tags removed and the sweater prepped and ready for wearing. She knelt down to present the gift to Tucker.

Tucker eyed the garment curiously, his wet little nose sniffing as he pondered what this new thing could be. Then, suddenly, the thing was on him. He froze, unsure of what to do next, but then his pet human pulled his legs through and it seemed to settle onto his little body with ease. He took a few practice steps, trying to nibble at the thing's hood with his teeth.

"Look mom!" Sarah exclaimed. "He looks SO CUTE! I have to get the camera!"

Tucker turned in a couple of circles, but as he did so he found himself warming up. The warmer he got, the more accustomed to the sweater he seemed to become.

"Time to take it for a test drive," Sarah said, opening up the door and watching as Tucker high-tailed it outside.

Tucker's first order of business was to make sure that one and all knew of his brand spankin' new sweater.

Kelsi was the first to hear the news, unable to ignore Tucker as he excitedly showed off his new fashion statement.

Ever the good aunt, she feigned a smile and pretended to be more interested than she really was, hoping that in doing so Tucker would be satisfied and distract himself with something else.

From his perch on top of Sarah's car, Teddy offered his two cents, not waiting for anyone to ask his opinion.

Other than those few words of wisdom, Teddy had little to say.

Tucker, now satisfied that he'd made everyone aware of his incredible sweater, busied himself with his usual outside activities; chewing bones, running around, sniffing out big important things.

And all the while he couldn't help but notice just how warm he stayed. What an awesome sweater!

After running around outdoors for a good long while, Tucker finally wore himself out and decided it would be as good a time as any to take a break and head back in for a quick nap on the couch. Not because of the cold, oh no. Just because he had run off all of the energy he'd built up so far.

But this was only the beginning, the first of many trips out into the cool air armed with a very handy little grey sweater. Why with that one little added accessory, Tucker felt that surely he could conquer the world! Starting, of course, with his own backyard!

HTM(hel)L

Well, I thought I was learning some HTML...

HA!

HAHAHAHAhahahahahuhuhuhah...*wipes brow* Whew!

Boy, I don't know who I thought I was kidding!

That there HTML stuff is a bit more complicated than I'm used to, apparently. So much so that I've grown fond of calling it HTM(hel)L. See, I've been trying-trying-trying to learn how to make a table of pictures. Thumbnails to be precise. So that I can post a bunch of pictures, but not all full sized. Instead, they'd show up in this nice and neat little row, and if you so chose to see a bigger version, all you'd do is click the thumbnail!

...Yeah...It's not quite as easy as it looks. I managed once. ONCE! Woo-hoo! But then I didn't dry my eyes out by staring at that cursed internet script for a couple of days, and so today when I sat down to try my luck again, I unfortunately discovered that all of my table-o-thumbnails knowledge had somehow completely escaped me.

Alas, it would seem I'll need at least another free 48-72 hours to figure that out. 

Yes, because I can spend hours and hours working on an HTML code, and if I walk away to get a drink of water before I finish it, when I get back I am absolutely and completely LOST. It's just like visiting a land you've never been to before, and driving along is alright, but then you look down to change the radio station and suddenly you may as well be on the moon. Because when you look up again, nothing is familiar.

Only in HTM(hel)L, not only are you lost, but your eyes also burn from trying to discern anything out of strings and strings of letters and backslashes and these little things < >!

So, forget that. I'll post my pictures later. Maybe next year. By then, surely I'll have it down.

[Don't quote me on that. Thanks.]

In other news, I'm in the creative process of reworking the look of this blog! Well, okay, I'm in the creative process of thinking about figuring out how I'd redo this blog if I knew what I was doing. (Which, coincidentally, is one of the reasons I'm trying to get a handle on HTML.) But that's just a bit of "I'm excited about it, so let me share!" news. Not for sure when that would happen or what all it would entail. Probably not much. So maybe a new banner, different colors. You know. BIG differences.

So anyway, if that comes out...I'm sure I'll post more. Maybe a countdown. That could be fun.

Also, since this post has no rhyme or reason thusfar anyway, I'll offer something else. In the interest of playing around with layouts and such -- you know, so I don't screw up mine before knowing what to do with it! -- and because I wanted to, I started another blog. If you know me, you'll know that I admit to loving Paris Hilton. That said, I've started a blog of random Paris news, updates, whatever. As if I'm the first person who's done that! In case you happen to want to check it out, it's just as easy as clicking this link. If you don't, then by all means...don't!

And - a question I wanted to ask. Does this happen to ANYONE else?

So I decide I sort of kind of maybe want to buy a new digital camera. So I have in mind this one that I'm looking at. And I've checked it out at a few different places. Then I get paid and realize if I want to buy it I actually can, so I get out again thinking that I'll look again, and perhaps be more interested in buying it than I was.

Only THEN I can't find it ANYWHERE.

Okay, I found it at once place. But I actually had a couple of cameras I was scoping out, and I only found one of them and I didn't really want to buy one without looking at the other one again. But still.

Is this just me? Am I the only person fortunate enough to suffer such a...condition?

I hope not.

Okay. I'm ending this post now. While I'm ahead. Or before I get too far behind. At this point, I cannot pretend that I'm not just babbling. Oh dear.

In closing, here's a picture of my dog Kelsi. :) Ain't she purdy?

Procrastination + Snacking = 75% of My Life's Problems

It's happened again. Yes, right now I am at this very second procrastinating. It's a disease, I think. Something that by all rights should be easy to catch yourself doing and avoid, but at the same time -- for me anyway -- by the time I realize I've moved from catching up on a few emails to refreshing my Facebook page despite the fact that there's nothing new to look at, I'm usually way past the point of no return.

In fact, it's often after the constant refreshing that I meander over here and see if I've gotten any new comments. Go figure.

So yes, by now I'm painfully aware of the fact that there are many other things I could, nay should be doing. However, I am not doing them.

It's just one of those lazy afternoons. Haven't done much. I had a big breakfast/lunch at Ihop with Mom, then went to my friends house to watch Hustle and Flow. So now I can't stop boppin' my head and singing, "It's hard out here for a pimp," which I can't actually claim is the truth as I have little to no experience being a pimp.

So now that I'm home, eagerly anticipating dinner, I can't seem to want to do anything besides sit here. Listening to the sound of my typing, birds chirping outside, the ceiling fan whirring, and of course my dogs scuffling.

Our newest, Tucker, has gotten so much bigger already. And he's getting along much better with our other dog, Kelsi. And even Teddy, our cat. He's a quick learner, too, on some things. Like he's pretty good with 'sit', 'speak', and 'come'. 

Well, 'come' is a new one, but he's good at it if he's not distracted by something else. Unfortunately, we're still working on housebreaking him. It's not that he won't ever tell you when he needs to go out, it's just that he does it in the same way he says, "I want to be in there with you." - By coming to the gate (we've sequestered him in the kitchen, and used those little pet gate things) and whines. 

So if you say, "No," thinking, 'I'm in the middle of this movie, and he just wants to play,' and then find out what he was trying to say was, "IgottagoIgottagoIgottago!" then, well...trouble in paradise.

But you can tell he's trying, so that's something. 

Anyway,  besides procrastinating, being painfully non-bilingual, knowing shamefully little about the U.S. government, and handling puppy puddles, I've also managed to spend much more money than I have, get bored with my hair color, add to the list of "Things I Want SO BAD!", and fall behind on sleep.

Nothin' to it, really. Although as I've added to the list of "Things I Want SO BAD!" I've also been able to remove a few. That's something, I suppose. Or maybe it's just an excuse. I'm sure that's much more likely. 

Which, if I may digress, is something else I find absolutely fantastical about people in general.

We have this uncanny ability to talk ourselves into (or out of) anything. Rationalizing something is surprisingly easy. Sometimes alarmingly so. I can only hope that most people will rationalize like I do -- To buy the purse, to not buy the purse?  As opposed to...oh, I don't know, 'Should I rob the bank?' Haha. 

Anyway, it's very clear that I've got nothing more to say. So I'm gonna wrap this up. I want to leave you with a funny thing I saw. Actually, it's a stand up from a snack display at a grocery store. It is my belief that it embodies the very reason that the United States has an 'eating problem'.