Rosa's Gone Bad...

Okay, so I freely admit that I have a MAJOR problem with caring far too much about others' opinions of me. Hello. My name is Carla, and I am a people-pleaser...galore. I cannot stand it when I think I have hurt someone's feelings unintentionally. I 'interpret' looks of others far too often and read into what I'm sure they're thinking. Long story short, our small group, whom I love so deeply, met for a casual dinner tonight at Rosa's. Taco Tuesday night. Cheap, good food. Seriously, all of Lubbock County finds their nearest Rosa's and goes to town on a taco plate. It was a rough day before dinner ever began. I have chosen to cut my private studio by one third and this week marks the first lesson I have had with my students since they have been notified of their 'fate' in the studio. Today wasn't fun. So, we go to dinner with the rest of world and sit our children at a booth directly across from our table. They were kids. They were a bit loud. They were kids. They tried to have a puppet show over the back of the booth. They were kids. Did I mention...okay you get it. Remember, the ENTIRE city of Lubbock seems to be at 50th and Indiana. Its loud. Everywhere. The adjoining booth to our children, though, seems to be filled with the one family in all of West Texas that thought it would be a good idea to have a nice, quiet dinner at Rosa's ON TACO TUESDAY NIGHT!!! After a good 20 minutes of watching the grandmother-figure turn to glare at our children and then glare at us, my blood pressure sky rocketed, and I turned to my husband at the brink of tears and let him know we were leaving. I am so embarrassed that I let that woman's look, whether it meant what I thought or not, effect me so severely. Jared and I were in the middle of such a fun conversation with Chas and Erin, and I ended the evening so abruptly. (If our home were cleaner, guys, I so would have begged you to come back over and watch American Idol...but there is an 'experiment' growing in the kitchen sink!) So, I guess this is my ranting/apology to my precious small group. But, SERIOUSLY! If you are looking to have a family dinner filled with substance, don't go to Rosa's on Tuesday night...or at least don't sit in a connective booth with my son! He's TWO for crying out loud!!! On that note, good night. Happy reality TV night!

A New Day!

Well, first of all, I have several updates from my late-night ranting last night! First, Jared went down this morning to pay for the wood we 'borrowed' from the college guys and to buy some more from them for tonight. He's SO much more honest than I am...I considered their wood just payment for all of the times their huge Rottweilers have come to have diarrhea in our bushes! I digress. Jared, wonderful as ever, kept a fire roaring all night long and saved the day!!! This picture is from just a bit ago. See?! Not too bad for your first home-ownership fire, right?!

Now about Jakob. After I got off of the computer, we called the on-call number and spoke to the second most wonderful doctor ever...second, of course, to our Dr. Wiz. (Jakob totally says her name correctly 9 times out of 10 now, but I just like the way Wiz falls from the tongue!) The on-call doctor was patient, thorough, and reassuring. Jakob had, in fact, had an adverse reaction to the penicillin. Thankfully, he never had any breathing problems, just a crazy looking rash from the tip of his head to the bottom of his feet, literally! His poor face look like we had painted him like a clown...red face with a white oval around his lips! Today, it's funny. Last night, not so much! So, we Benadryled, Tylenoled, and slept really pretty well at our indoor/outdoor slumber party! The BEST part of the whole thing happened this morning! I had planning on called Liz this morning and just double checking everything I had learned last night, especially the new prescription. But, before I could, SHE CALLED US!!! Blogs do work miracles! So funny! She had checked the blog this morning and called us...I cannot stop smiling about that! Jakob even talked with her on the phone. He is now reminding us that he talked to 'bootiful Dr. Liz.' He saw Liz's bridal portraits and quickly let me know that HIS Dr. Liz was 'bootiful.' Too funny! So, back to the pharmacy we go today. We are so thankful, however, that we are going for just another antibiotic and nothing more serious! Thank you to the on-call doctor from last night! You made me feel non-dumb and very safe! But you know, all in all...it was a really fun night that we will repeat for years to come...without the broken heater and adverse drug reaction!

Romantic Fireside?

So, in true Hardy fashion, our heater went out today. After 5 pm. After the snowfall. After people make house calls to fix/replace a furnace. After the time of year when people sell firewood. Yep. Thankfully, we have a fireplace. A gas fireplace, at that. Unfortunately, we haven't ever had that gas line tested and decided that today, with a fire, wasn't the day to 'just check it out.' So, Jared rummaged through our alley to find twigs and downed branches for a wood-burning fire in our gas-burning fireplace! After all, we've got single-digit wind chills, people! To make things even more fun, my brother is here with us this weekend. Nothing like having company and no heat for them! Thankfully, he had an arctic sleeping bag with him, so he's fine. After Jared had exhausted our sad smattering of wood clippings around the house, we got desperate. Please don't report my husband. We have this house on our street that is illegally filled with too many college guys. They are, to put it kindly, not the best neighbors in the world. They do, however, have a wood pile beside their house that has been there, unused for the year and a half we have lived here. So, Jared got resourceful and 'borrowed' a few pieces while we decided what our next move should be! I know! It's awful! But wait...after we thought some more...he went back and got more! Please. I'm begging. Don't have my husband arrested. We're expecting a baby, for crying out loud! Well, at around 11 tonight, he went to see if maybe, just maybe WalMart might have some wood left. No. They did not. So, he did the next best things. No! He did not go back to our neighbor's home! How could you think that?! He went to a construction site and took their scrap wood! So, now, I'm sitting here in the living room, on the futon mattress, next to my sleeping child and x-boxing husband, listening to the loud crackle and pop from 2 x 12 pieces of wood. So, romantic? No. Industrial and daring? Absolutely!

On a more serious note, we took Jakob back to the doctor today, thinking he had another ear infection. He doesn't, thank the Lord. He does have a sinus infection, though, that has been hanging around for around three weeks. We started a stronger antibiotic tonight. Since he has taken that around 9 pm, he has broken out in a rash, especially on his face. He is asleep now with us, but is moaning and saying, "owie" in his sleep with a death grip on his chin and mouth. I feel pretty certain that he is having a reaction to this stronger medicine, but not quite sure what to do next. So, I'm off to pray and talk with Jared...and consult WebMD. Hope you and your are warm tonight!

Love

The famous Love Block was catty-cornered from our hotel on this trip to NYC, so of course we couldn't pass up a photo-op! I DO love this man...a lot!

And then, there is the other love of my life, my sweet Jakob boy. I didn't realize how long it has been since I posted a picture of him! I will remedy that soon! After all, I STILL haven't posted pictures from Christmas, for crying out loud! Anyway, these are a few weeks old while he was so sick. As awful as his being sick was, we got the best cuddles out of that time! I am quite fearful of how my heart may burst when Miss Lily gets here. I cannot imagine feeling this for all three of my sweet loves: Jared, Jakob, and Lily. Bring it on!

Your Own Personal Tour!

Well, I won't blame a single soul if no one reads this post as it is full of all those scenery pictures one seems to take on every vacation and then never look at again! So, this is my attempt at looking at them more than once! Pictured above is almost our whole group, minus sponsors and directors, at the fountain in Central Park. Our first morning there (Tuesday) was our private bus tour. Our tour guide, Julie, was wonderful...I mean really wonderful. She was quirky and genuine. Here are a few, I swear, of my favorite images from the tour! Remember that most of these were taken from the inside of a bus, so no cracks on the photo quality!

These signs, and other like them, were sponsored by Mt. Sinai Hospital...too funny!

Yeah, right!

Central Park...I could have posted 3,000 of these, either from this trip or one of the other two times I've been! Good grief...

Jared and I were able to be in New York with our college choir in April before the World Trade Center attacks in September of 2001. Like of us I suspect, I am still very in awe at the events of that day. It really does seem so surreal at times when you aren't there all of the time. When we were in New York on our last trip (2005) we visited this church located directly across the street from the WTC site. If you don't know the story, there was not a single pane of glass broken in the church while the skyscrapers surrounding the WTC were damaged beyond salvage. It stands as an amazing testament and was used as a headquarters of sorts during the days and weeks following the attacks. It really is an amazing place to visit. The pictures above, though, are part of the story that touched my heart the most. In case you cannot read the inscription, here is what it says:

"As firefighters change from their "civvies" into their gear, they hang their civilian boots on the spikes of Trinity Church. Boots unclaimed at the end of the day belong to firefighters who lost their lives in the World Trade Center. Their boots became a memorial."

They believe that the church was unharmed because of the huge sycamore tree that stood on the property, at the end of the small cemetery on the site, in between the church and the WTC. That tree was so huge and grounded that it withstood the blow of the tons of debris that rained down and blew toward the church. Here are pictures of the roots of that tree that have been set up as a memorial.

The World Trade Center Site today, well, on Tuesday!
The beginnings of The Freedom Tower. This is going to be the coolest building, really.
The WTC Sphere that stood between the two towers the day they fell. The sculpture has been moved to nearby Battery Park for now.

Fagedabowdit!

$15 may not seem like much money, but when that is the fee for using the same internet I can get for free at my local, Texan McDonald's...no thank you! Fagedabowdit! (for you New Yorkers out there!) I had every intention of posting daily from our trip until we got to the hotel and learned that we would be paying $15 per day for internet usage. I decided to wait and post from home! We had a great trip on the whole. I have bragged about how non-pregnant I have felt for the last 6 months...it caught up to me this week! There is nothing like New York City with 50 teenagers to remind you just how pregnant you are! I did fine, but by the end of every day I was swollen and tired with a capital T-I-R-E-D! So, needless to say, I am so glad to be home and blogging from bed while watching March Madness games! Life couldn't be better! This was mine and Jared's third trip to New York, and we got to do some things that we had never done before, so I have lots of fun stories! I'll spread them out over a couple of days, though!

We left on Monday morning and had hassle-free travel for the most part! Other other flight group can't say the same, bless their hearts. No matter how many times we go, one of my favorite parts is now watching our students' faces for the first time when they step off of the bus in Times Square. There is nothing like it really. Their heads all go straight up and their necks look as if they're going to snap because they are back so far! It was the most quiet we had all week at that moment! Monday night, we had dinner at Planet Hollywood and spent a little bit of time shopping the vendors on Times Square.

Jared battling Freddy at Planet Hollywood. We had to tip this guy...what a city.

Jared and me on Times Square Monday night in front of the new musical 9 to 5, adapted by Dolly Parton!

Funny story...if you know my sweet Jared, you know that he knows everyone. As we were waiting for our hotel to get us taken care of, Jared and I were waiting with our kids on the sidewalk. We stayed at the Hilton, Times Square which is across the street from the Ziegfeld Theater. We noticed a crowd formed with cameras (paparazzi) and such and started asking the right question, "Who are you waiting for?" We learned that the NY premier of Duplicity, the new Julia Roberts/Clive Owen film, had just finished in the theater, and they were about to leave! WooHoo!!! So, we are all waiting, and three of our not-so-bright freshman girls run across the street to "get a better picture." They just didn't understand that a cab wouldn't stop for them! So, Jared yells, I mean really yells, for them to get themselves back across the street via the appropriate crosswalk. All of a sudden, we hear this voice hollering back saying, "Sir, please stop yelling at these kids!" My heart stopped until we saw one of our professors from Wayland with her husband come through the crowd! It was hilarious! She said she knew it couldn't be anyone but Jared once they heard that big 'ole voice! Even on Times Square, Jared's voice is recognizable!

So, that was Monday. Tuesday, was St. Patrick's Day...the most crowded I have ever seen NYC. It was unnerving trying to keep up with that many kids in the midst of flowing green beer! We took a tour of the city, had lunch in Little Italy, rode the Subway for the first time, shopped in Chinatown, and saw South Pacific at the Lincoln Center Theater. It was a great day! Enjoy some pictures!

Lucky Lily couldn't go unrepresented on St. Patty's Day! I made this little tribute shirt at like 11 pm the night before we left! Nothing like pre-planning!

Jared, on the other had, bought a shirt off of a vendor the night before so as not to be pinched (or shot) or whatever on Tuesday! The beads turned his neck green!

Here we are at the Statue of Liberty on the tour. More tour pictures to come later!

Goin' to the Apple!

Jared I leave tomorrow morning for NYC with around 50 of our students for a FUN Spring Break Vacation! Usually on choir trips, we have to perform at a venue, but since this one falls completely within Spring Break, we don't!!! Hooray! Stress free!...yeah, right! We are getting to do so many cool things this week. This trip is the third time Jared and I will be getting to go to New York, but we are thankfully doing some new and exciting things while we are there this time! I am not going to tell you about them, because I am going to try my hardest to blog every night from our hotel! We'll see! However, you know the plan! I can't find the pictures on either computer from our last trip to NYC (I know, that's not good...). I was going to post a picture from that trip to get us all in the spirit. SO, a picture from Hawaii 2 years ago will just have to do. Too bad I can't break out the flip flops for this trip! Me in the belly of a submarine at Pearl Harbor...not very scenic...should have thought this through a bit!

My Husband, the Superstar!

Well, if this is really the Hardy Party, then I must take a moment to brag on our fearless leader, Jared. Today was UIL Contest and Sightreading Contest for our high school choirs. Jared took 2 of our 3 choirs today: Sub-Nonvarsity Mixed Choir and Nonvarsity Women's Choir. They both got sweepstakes awards! Hooray! Our top group, who Mr. Brown conducts, also received straight ones. Long story short, our program continues to set itself apart, both in individual and collective accolades. Jared never ceases to amaze me on these days. I could NOT do this. Give me one-on-one instruction. Jared, on the other hand, seems to bring the best out of every single student on the risers and prepare them to be really great. This year, I had the privilege of accompanying him, so I got to share the stage as he led his kids. It was the best seat in the house. He is so encouraging, yet demanding. He teaches them to expect nothing but the best from themselves, and they don't. He is truly a brilliant musician with ears that defy my brain! He so quickly and efficiently hears their problems and fixes them precisely...I am still trying to figure out what measure they're reading! We are so truly blessed in our positions at Frenship, but may I say that Frenship is truly blessed to have my husband. I watched my sweet boyfriend of 8 years smile like a little boy at the success of others today. I love him with every fiber of my being, and I am so proud and honored to share his name. Okay, I think I'm going to go have a date now! Have a great night!

Jakob's Princess

Well, its official! Jakob has his first ear infection. I would have been so much more shocked if Liz had said anything but that after a weekend of pain and fever for my poor boy. She was, as always, tremendously wonderful and so kind to Jakob and his waxy ears. (Can I get an 'Amen' from the moms who stink a the wax removal!?) Anyway, after his appointment, she asked if he thought that Lily Hope should get a sticker. He, of course, said yes, and she returned with a great Cinderella sticker. He carried it very carefully to the car and then into the house. He took it back to his room and got very quiet...I know, "what is he doing back there?!" He came into the living room just as I was about to go figure out what was broken. Here is what played out:

Jakob: "Mommy. Sit down."

Me: "How about you use your polite words."

Jakob: "Mommy. Sit down right now.......please."

Me: (deciding this was not the time for a teaching moment) "Okay."

Jakob: (lifting up my shirt and leaning into my belly button) "Wily Hope...you did a very good job today with Dr. Liz. She gave you a sticker." (he puts it on my tummy, right over the belly button) "This is Cinderella, Lily. She is a princess, just like you." (he can't decide if its going to be Wily or Lily, so most conversations have both ways in them!)

It was the sweetest thing. I cannot wait to see him with her. I also cannot wait for the ear infection to be a thing of the past!

Looking to Waste Some Time?!

Jakob is sick with what I think is going to be his first ear infection. I do count myself very lucky that this is the first in his over 2 and a half years of life...anyway, I digress. We got very little sleep last night on an already shorter night of sleep, thanks to whoever came up with the brilliant idea of daylight savings...there is a special place on my dark side for that person! I am so tired tonight, but for some reason, I decided that I should waste a good 30 minutes designing a new blog header. The good news?! It was free and really easy! For those of you with nice photo editing software, this site is completely unnecessary, but for the rest of us, it is awesome! You can design your own scrapbooking pages and print them...I may get my scrapbooks done yet if I can use this ingenious site! Anyway, I really had a great time and had to share! Check it out at www.scrapblog.com.

100th Post!!!

That's right! I have rambled and you have read, or at least glanced at, 100 blog posts! Who knew! So, in the spirit of celebrations, I thought I would share with you our newest woo-hoo moment! We bought....drum roll please....a minivan!!! We have known we needed to get another car and get rid of the Sebring for a while. Jared has been hunting and scoping stuff out for months. It really pays off to be married to a sometime used car salesman! He agreed not to bring me anything until it was serious. We had looked for Tahoes and Yukons until Jared found this Entourage. It was everything we needed, newer than we hoped for, and priced more than just right. So, kudos and many thanks to my sweet husband for spending the time and energy to find exactly what we need and want! 10 years ago I would have said that 2 kids and a minivan would have been my worst nightmare...but look at me now! Funny thing is, I couldn't be more happy and blessed.

*uhhhh...who knew that the thumbnails of these pictures would truly be the size of my thumbnail...good grief!

Pavlov's Dog

You know the theory...ring a bell (or something) and the dogs will come running no matter what the outcome?! Well, I am feeling like that dumb dog right now! I have invested, yes invested, myself in this season of the Bachelor after investing myself in last season's Bachelorette. I have been rooting for Melissa all season long and couldn't understand tonight why they were billing this extraordinarily emotional After the Final Rose. GOOD GRIEF!!! I cannot believe that I am just another sucker who feels as though I am along for their ride. So, he is about to break up with Melissa, and I am sick...absolutely sick. Next season, please stop me! This is craziness!!!