Texas Flair

I dedicate this post to all my friends out in Louisville, KY. I loved telling them about Texas while I lived there and they seemed to enjoy hearing about it. My teacher buddies and I would talk about how different things were as far as wildlife and scenery goes compared to KY. So... while I was out-and-about driving all over Texas this summer.... I decided to take a few snapshots of things I find special in TX.

First stop... Sweetwater and Roscoe, TX. You would be amazed at all the windmills in west Texas! It is quite a sight to see.



There are more than 100 windmills on this one hill in Sweetwater. There is definitely wind here to supply power!

























Next stop.... Lubbock, TX where I grew up.





These jack rabbits live on an area near the University Medical Hospital, where Robert trained for medical school. In the middle of the day they hang out under the trees. I love their long ears.

There are lots of prairie dog colonies throughout Lubbock. This colony is out on the land near Monterey Church of Christ's new location. (This is the church I grew up going to.) My dad took these pictures of the burrowing owls out among the prairie dog homes.












There is a little lake in my parent's neighborhood and during the year there are lots of mallard ducks that live there. This picture was taken by my dad this past spring. He told me that he counted 13 ducklings swimming behind their momma. In the fall there are lots of Canadian geese that land here and stay for the winter.








This next picture was taken in my backyard. One night I looked out my back window and found this beautiful moth on my back patio.



We have a lot of lizards around our yard in the summer. This one loved sunbathing out on the birdhouse I had sitting out in my "things to put up later pile." I watched him crawl over to the wing and turn from green to brown. I couldn't resist taking a picture of him soaking up some rays.



These last two pictures are not what I would call anything special about TX. You find opposums pretty much anywhere... but this one was too close for comfort. This one decided to help himself to the cat food I had put out for our cat. I was watching TV one night when suddenly my dogs started barking hysterically at the back sliding door. I looked out and saw her eating from the cat bowl, ignoring my 2 dogs barking at her inches from her face. I ran and got my camera, but she had started taking off toward the back corner of our yard. I was able to snap a few shots of her climbing up onto a storage shed for pool supplies.

Texas Tech's College Gameday

Robert and I decided to buy season tickets for the Tech football games this year, and boy was that a good decision! It has been an awesome season.... the best ever! The weekend of the Texas Tech vs Texas game, we decided to get up at 6am on Saturday and head out to the Texas Tech campus for ESPN's College Gameday. We were so excited that Tech was finally going to host this event in Lubbock. We got there around 7:15 - 7:30am. The broadcasting wasn't going to start till 9am, but we wanted to get there in hopes of being up front behind the platform. We ended up being around 5 people back. There were homemade signs EVERYWHERE!!! The crowd was so pumped up! The whole weekend was full of energy, actually the whole week leading up to the game.... according to my parents, who live in Lubbock. They told the crowd that they had never seen so many signs and that they were impressed with the energy of the fans.















Coach Mike Leach loves pirate stuff.... so there were lots of pirate signs and flags. There were even T-shirts printed with the skull and cross bones for the weekend on black T-shirts. The half time show at the game was even a pirate theme. All the members from the Going Band from Raiderland had pirate scarves on their heads and a few "retired" band members (including my cousin, Kathryn) dressed up like pirates and ran around the field passing out eye patches to fans on the front row. The flag girls held pirate flags while the band played music from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean." During the show, the band did a skull and cross bones formation and at one point appeared to be "fighting" as they scrambled into another formation. It was a great half time show, to go with the best game ever!




You can see how close we were to the stage.... just off to the left of the back of the stage, near the goal post.











This sign was one of my favorites. It was titled, "Pirates of the Plains." Crabtree, Harrell, and Leach are pictured as the pirates.






Another favorite! It said... "Colt? More like my little pony." Colt McCoy's head was placed on a my little pony toy.






As we were leaving the Gameday event, we had to stop by and take a few pictures of out favorite features on the campus. Here we are in front of Will Rogers on his horse, Soapsuds. Soapsuds rear end faces toward the Aggies' Kyle Field. (One of the bell towers is in the background. You can hear the bells ringing as you leave the game after a Texas Tech win.) The Texas Tech Saddle Tramps decorate this statue before every home game.


This one is in front of the Texas Tech seal. I will later post a few pictures during the game, once I upload these off of Robert's cellphone. It was an amazing game. Our ears were ringing at the end of the game.... it was like we had just come from a rock concert... the fans were so loud! We stood the entire game and I had almost lost my voice... it took a week to get my voice fully back... just in time to lose it again at the Tech vs OSU game. Hope you enjoyed the pictures! It was a BLAST!

Home Improvement of the Upstairs Bathroom

When we moved into this house.... I knew of a few changes I wanted to immediately make. I knew I wanted to change the kitchen hardware and outlet/light covers from brass to brushed nickle (which I've done.) AND..... I wanted to totally change the upstairs bathroom. It was bleeding the 80s! So... this fall I went out and looked for a shower curtain and used that to base all my colors from. I knew this would eventually become a kids bathroom, so I wanted it to be bright and cheerful. Right now, it is the only bathroom upstairs.... we eventually plan to add another bathroom upstairs.

Here is what the bathroom looked like before:

















































I couldn't imagine picking out this wallpaper..... even when it was in it's prime. I couldn't wait to tear it down, so I squirted water mixed with downey and started peeling away the layers. When I got it off, I discovered there was another layer of wallpaper up there, so I tried peeling it off too.... but soon realized that I was damaging the dry wall. I went and got primar to seal it. Then decided I wanted textured walls. SO.... I decided to buy the already mixed up stuff that you just had to spread on the walls. I had never textured walls before... and it wasn't too hard. So after that dried, I painted it with primar again. Yuck.... I hated that stuff and the way it smells and would give me a high/headache. Then.... I decided to paint it this really BRIGHT green.... almost neon green. I felt it was time to have fun and just go crazy with color.

Here is the result:


Oh... first, here is the wall before I added the BRIGHT green.










And here's the crazy green.




I kept it there for a few days to see if the color would grow on me. (It didn't.) I went back to get a different color of green and had Robert come with me this time. I had lost all confidence in my ability to pick out good colors. (Which I now have gotten over.) I went with a bright lighter shade of green.... still bright, but a more muted bright. I loved the way this looked.

Here is the finished product:











I don't know if you could tell, but I changed the hardware on the cabinets to brushed nickle, as well as the towel bars and light switch/outlet covers. I also used a brushed nickle shower curtain rod. I decided to have some fun whimsical fish theme accents, such as a trash can and kleenex box cover. I tried to make this a kid's bathroom that could easily be converted into an older kid's bathroom once they get older. I hope you like the finished product..... we do. :) We plan to take out the shower/tub unit and have the wall tiled and a porcelain tub put in. We also want to change out the countertop to maybe a granite. But that will probably be in a year. I'll post that on here when that eventually happens.