Changes.. A New Chapter Begins

I hate being so sentimental about dumb things. For instance, when my department moved locations, to a new, bigger and much nicer location I got all sentimental, like this is the last time I will push my chair under this desk or this is the last time I will put my code in this door, the last time I will buy a soda from this machine.... you get the point, just stupid dumb things. I look back now and I cannot remember what it felt like or much more what it even looked like because it simply wasn't important. Well, Papa Bear decided to move his shop to another area more convienent to his store. So today we took the very last load out and closed the door on his old shop. I had to walk through it one more time before though. I had to look at each corner, each decoration, each empty shelf.... I don't know why. I had to stop myself from taking a picture of his business plate on the door. I asked him if he felt sad...he said not at all. But me.... it was kind of hard. This was his first business adventure on his own. He did all the work by himself... his sweat, our tears... we made it work. And he still has the business... I am thankful...it's just now in a different office building. I'm sure we will make new memories there... and aside from a few special moments..I can't really think of anything truly exciting happening at the old shop. I can remember some arguements and tense moments...not even sure what they were about though. So anyway, that chapter of our life is closed and a new one begins. And I must say... I'm excited about it. I feel it will be a positive change. He seems more relaxed already.
Our dentist is in the same office building that the old shop was in. Both girls had to get their cleanings. I love, love, love my dentist by the way. CC was acting all scared and made Lena go first. Lena was a trooper...as you can tell by the photo. (Taken with my phone, so I'm not sure about the quality). CC did well once she got in the chair, but only because I left. I have found that if I don't sit with her when she is in the chair she gets a little stronger. If I'm there, this 13 year old suddenly becomes 3 and it gets embarassing! Mom took the girls for their flu shot a couple of years ago. Lena sat down, got her and said "Ow.' CC... took off running around the room. The nurse, my mom and Lena had to hold her down!
After the dentist we were all starved and Emil decided to go to Nic's new restaurant to have dinner. I had never been before and it was super good! CC was still mad about the dentist and said she wasn't hungry. However, half way there she asked me if she could wear her heels. (Yes, she keeps a pair of heels in my back seat!) I told her of course....if she will eat. Her face immediately lit up and she was singing! That's all it took for her to forgive me for taking her to the dentist! Imagine that!

Lena enjoyed a mushroom and swiss angus burger. CC had chicken nuggets, Emil had a bacon and cheese angus and I had the phillycheesesteak. Thumbs up! It was great!

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On the way to the restaurant I was thinking about my last walk through at the old shop and suprisingly I couldn't remember much. Really... it just didn't seem as important compared to what lies ahead of us.... then.... Jodey Mesina's "Bring on the Rain" played on the radio. This song has really put things into perspective for me....it helped carry me through many rough periods in my past few years. We lost two major accounts and it terrified me. I was scared, crying, nervous and worried. Then I played this song and I thought about the lyrics, "A single battle lost, but not the war/ 'Cause tomorrow's another day/ And I am not afraid/ So bring on the rain" And it's true. These were only set backs for something much grander...much better... it brought our family together. It hurt financially, yes, but it did not break us. It made us appreciate what we have more, taking nothing for granted. It gave us more time with our family and I see how much our family has grown through it. Isn't that what it's all about? It seemed appropriate that this song came on as we moved our shop location. It's scary but it's a new beginning. I'm excited to see what lays ahead. And I'm happy to do this with Emil, right by his side, falling when he falls, standing when he stands and holding his hand when he's down. I am so happy he's my partner in life and in love. And I'm happy to close the chapter on that old shop....it had lots of mold anyway!

I don't really have much to blog about. We have been soooo busy cleaning the garage. I mean we cleaned it up and down! Before you could not even walk through it, there was so much junk...just litteraly junk! There was a small space in the front for the trash can to fit and a small walkway about five or six inches wide to walk through to get the trash bag to the trash can. Emil and I started Wednesday night putting all the trash to the front and seperating the things we wanted to keep. I took Friday off so that we could finish. It's a good thing I did because we did not finish until 1:30 a.m. Friday morning! We were hauling trash off in the rain... I have had a sore throat since Monday. And now...after being wet, and all that dust... I feel like crap! So much congestion, sore throat, headache, body ache, chills come and go. Just not good at all...hence....why I forgot to take pictures. I could show you the after but it would mean nothing because you would have had to see the before to get the magnitude of what we did. Emil said it's impossible to do what we did.. and he doesn't even know how we did it. He's right. I don't know either!
It makes me think of this time a long time ago we were at my mother in law's house and their Russian friend was there. He always had this cocky attitude and I never liked him much anyway. That night he was on an "American's are so stupid" trip and one thing he said was "American's are so stupid that they are the only people to store trash in their garages and park their expensive cars on the street." While cleaning my garage I thought about what Vadim said and it kinda irked me that in my case, he was right. But not any longer!!! Hahahaha! Another thing I remember him saying that night was "Americans are so stupid they are the only people who will go to a drive through and order a double cheeseburger with bacon, large fries and a diet coke." I happen to like diet coke and I will pretty much order it with anything I get from a restaurant. After a few of these I got ticked off and went to the other room. He was my in-laws friend and I was in their house and I had to be nice. I wanted to tell him if we are so stupid why in the world are you here and most of all why in the world are you in OUR army, protecting this "stupid" country? UGH! I can't stand him!
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I checked my camera for new pictures to share with you but found only these three. Imagine that...a whole week went by and I only took three photos. You KNOW I must have been sick!
Lisa had a hair appointment and brought Jakob over to play with the girls while she was there. Since Lisa is super allergic to cats I kept Charlie in my room so his hair wouldn't get on Jakob's clothes. I came in here to check on him and this is what I saw.
Honestly, have you EVER seen anything more beautiful? Such a sweet little angel!
Lena and Jakob played Rock Band almost the entire time. Then they took Luigi for a walk. I really wanted to take pictures because there were so many cute moments but I just didn't feel good enough. In fact, I felt so bad that I was able to come in my room and take a nap with Charlie..... while my two girls and Jakob played Rock Band....right outside my door. Now you know I had to feel really bad to sleep (soundly) through that!
I guess all that rockin' wore Lena out. I found her and Charlie knocked out on the couch later in the evening...... with the Wii remote still around her hand.
She slept for about an hour and a half. Luigi jumped on the back door and scared me. I jumped off the couch to see what it was, I thought he was in CC's room. When I jumped up, Lena jumped up and said, still sleepily, "I just can't do it anymore. I'm too tired." She was talking about the Wii. It was cute because I had already switched the TV back to cable and was watching Jurassic Park when she said that ..... I guess she thought she was still Wii-ing. Poor baby!
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So while cleaning out my garage I found so many beautiful things that I had forgotten I owned. All of my beautiful tea sets, a gorgeous china set. (Emil told me to list it on ebay. I told him he was crazy!) A silver candleabra my sister gave us for our wedding. So many boxes of cut crystal ... some of the items I remember seeing was a cake server, numerous bowls, a complete punch bowl set with little cups and hook to hold the cups on the side of the bowl and it's ladle, a blue contemporary style crystal candy dish (huge, about nine inches in diameter), many serving dishes with the colonial people theme. It was just amazing. If he will ever buy me a china cabinet it will be completely full! I won't need to purchase one thing for it. For now all my pretties are stored in the attic. Here is a photo of some of my teasets... there are a few more in the garage stacked along the wall. I don't want those in the attic. I am too afraid of having something break when we take it down.
And there are more here in the hall too. This is only what I could get without waking everyone up taking more pictures.
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I can't believe I am almost at my 100th post. I need to start looking for some good giveaway items! I know I have slacked off lately on my blogging and I really need to stop that. It just seems that lately I have been so busy.... there are days I don't get on the computer at all!
I am not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow....especially feeling like this. But I have enjoyed these three days off....even if I was sick. I love being with my girls. I'm taking them to Le Madeliene today. I promised them we would go Friday. We didn't..... then I promised them we would Saturday. We went but it was sooooo busy we could see people standing waiting for a seat inside. Not happening. So I told the girls we were going to Costco for cat food and litter and then we would eat hotdogs and pizza there. No complaints! However, last night Lena asked if we could go to Le Madeleine today, just me and her. I told her yes but we would have to bring CC too.... she asked if Nanny could go.... I said "of course." So maybe I will have pictures of that.
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Tonight is the Grammies. There is supposed to be a 3-D special of Michael Jackson's music or something. The glasses are free at Target. I guess I will need to head over there and get us some. I don't usually watch the Grammies but I suppose tonight I will. Have you gotten you glasses? Are you planning on watching them tonight?

Skateboards and Rockband

January 11th my baby turned 9! Her last year of being a single digit. I am so happy that in many ways Lena is still very child-like, but in many ways she is soooo beyond her years, a huge vocabulary, so technically savvy and she still has the sweetest little hands and hugs and kisses and snuggles... ok.. on with my post.
Lena has been wanting a skateboard. I always told her "no" because she is a girl and skateboarding is not really a girly thing to do. This is what my mom told me the one and only time I asked for one. I never asked again....I finally gave in and took Lena to get one. Ok, well I was guilted into it. The Sunday before Sierra wanted to go look at ONE model home...it turned into four model homes and Lena was home that whole time...wondering where we were and it was her last day as an eight year old and I felt like the crappiest mother in the whole world!
So, I promised to take her to Academy and get her one...and a helmet too, of course. We learned from CC's accident. Lena LOVES it! She skates all the time. I try to take her out a few minutes each evening to let her practice. The second day she was already going by herself across the house. I am SO proud of her!

Lisa gave Lena a gift card to Game Stop for her b-day. Lena used her card and Emil put in the rest of the money and bought her (us) Rock Band. I didn't think I would get into it...but man, I am in love!

Sadly, in the process of getting Rock Band home my sunglasses got broken and the entire contents of my makeup bag were scattered on the floor of the back seat! Thanks PapaBear!

Emil and Lena both were so excited to come home and set it up!

The good thing about it is that the stipulation is that ALL homework and each girls chore list MUST be completed before turning the Wii on! On Friday their homework and chores were done by 9 a.m.! Imagine that!

I didn't get any pictures of us playing yet because, well, we have all been playing. Except for Emil. He's been out of commission today. Since the boys behaved so well at Serge's party last weekend, they made up for it last night, coming home at 4:30 a.m. and too drunk to talk! I am so happy that they ALL are suffering today... AND because I am such a nice wife, I made sure to have Rock Band just a little louder than usual! (That's for drinking too much, breaking my sunglasses, spilling my make-up bag and splattering Coke on my purse!)

Lena is amazing on the guitar, CC is awesome on vocals and I am just not getting into 80% on drums! The first day the girls played 12 hours straight. When I came home from work they were both so hungry because neither one wanted to get off to get something to eat!

I love that this is something fun we can all do together!

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Now, a little gripe session.....

Last night my U-Verse receiver started resetting itself....and kept resetting itself...ALL DAY! I called AT&T and asked them to reset this, as that usually works. The operator... not so nice. She told me that she was just going to send a technician out. I explained to her I didn't want a techinician to come, I wanted her to reset it so that I can watch my television. She said I had already done all the trouble shooting that was possible and she was checking for the next available technician appointment. I had to chuckle to myself and calmly asked her, "Maim, are you not hearing what I say? I do.not.want.a.technician.to.come. I.want.you.to.reset.it.so.I.can.watch.my.tv!" She said,"Ok, unplug.the.power.cord." (I did) She asked if the At&T logo was appearing, no it wasn't. Then.....SHE chuckled and said, "I guess we are going to need to send that technician out anyway. Is there some reason you don't want a techinician at your house?" No...no reason. It's just this will be the THIRD time I have had to have a technician come to my house for U-Verse for one reason or another and I was going to lose all my DVR'd shows because she put in the order for him to just bring me a new box! URGH!

----> So, I have a new box---> but----> NO FREAKING DVR'd SHOWS! Thanks At&T!

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Then.... my AT&T touch screen cell phone stopped responding to touch about a three weeks ago. You can see the dificulty in this because I can't get to the menu without....touching my screen! I kept begging Emil to go to AT&T to fix it, when I went they just told me it was water damage and there was nothing they could do to help. He wouldn't go....until today. WHY? Because last night HIS phone stopped working. The response from AT&T? Apparently now BOTH phones have water damage and we will.....have to just purchase new phones, at full retail price! How VERY convient for AT&T! I think NOT! I am currently on eBay looking for a new phone. The way I am feeling right now..... AT&T bites!

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I am perplexed right now as well. Lisa and Jakob and Jenny came over last night. YAY! Allegra works! I had a lot of fun. And now they are wanting to come over again. And I don't mind, in fact I would LOVE to have them over, we go over to their house all the time and I love having people over and talking and laughing! BUT...... the girls don't want company. They keep whining that they want it just us.... they don't want to share me with anyone. I feel so bad! I haven't called Lisa back yet and I don't know what to tell her. I'm thinking maybe asking her if she wants to meet for coffee or something. We'll see I guess. How would you handle a situation like this? I don't know what to do. I don't want to upset my girls but I don't want to upset Lisa either and I would like to spend time some time chatting with her... any suggestions?

A January Saturday....

Last Saturday we had a pretty busy day. Lisa picked me and Sierra up at 8:45 a.m. to have breakfast at IHOP then go to the International Gem and Jewelry show. I have never been but Lisa and her mother-in-law Nella go every year. Lisa buys such beautiful stones and semi-precious stones for Nella to make necklaces with. Her collection is just beautiful! I should take pictures of some of her items...but anyway. This was a first for me and CC and I didn't really know what to expect. If I learned anything... it's to walk around and price FIRST then go back and buy. It was kinda hard to do with CC constantly telling me look over here, no here, let's look there, why didn't you go here, it's only $3, it will match my other five strands..... you get the point. I missed several booths but went home with some very pretty things and one VERY maxed out credit card!

The jewelry show was in the Lila Crockrill theatre. We parked at the Grand Hyatt downtown and walked through the hotel into in the theatre's meeting rooms. There was a short walk outside along San Antonio's river. I took the opportunity to take a few photos....of course. I'm a blogger...my camera is ALWAYS with me!
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This is a mural on top of the back side of the hotel.... (I love that blue sky)

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This is the restaurant in the hotel. There are beautiful chandeliers and painting and glass art work all over the hotel. It's truly breathtaking!

Lisa and I are planning to each take a day off in April and spend the day downtown, lunch here is definately on the agenda!
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This is going up the escalator from the ground level (river) to the lobby of the hotel. It's a beautiful collection of glss butterfly thingys... too pretty!

This was actually inside the Lila Crockrill theatre. The entire sculputure (if that's what you call it) is composed of soda cans.... Sierra nearly went nuts when she saw this. She now wants to save all of her Dr. Pepper and Diet Dr. Pepper cans to make on huge giant Dr. Pepper can. I've been throwing all the cans away.... that plan, my friends, will just NEVER happen!

The river...... It was chilly and windy that day. But it is so pretty there I couldn't help myself. I HAD to take pictures!

CC and Jakob. Jakob has a little crush on CC and we were teasing them that they both were wearing stripes that day. It was so sweet...before I took the photo Jakob fixed his hair and straightened his shirt....

CC took this picture of me and Lisa. Sierra already knows... when she takes a picture of us it has to be from the chest up! Come on, I KNOW I'm not the only one who does this!

Now it my and CC's turn.

After the jewelry show I took Lena to buy her a skateboard (that will be another post) and then get ready to go to Sergey's 37th birthday party. I wasn't too psyched about going because the last time we went Emil had wwaaaaaaayyyyyy too much to drink and it was one awful ride home.

Anyway, Ida prepared a beautiful table full of delicious food and you guessed it....vodka!

One of my favorite Russian dishes was present.....shuba! By the looks of it, it was a favorite of everyone's! There is hardly any left!

Dolma's made a suprise visit... along with different types of salads, breads, red cavier, borzheneena, smoked salmon, steaks smothered in cheese and mushrooms. It was super delicious...and the best chocolate cake I have EVER had!

Though the guys drank, they behaved and everyone enjoyed themselves! Here is Arkadiy, my Papa Bear and Lisa's husband, Stas.

And of course the birthday boy, Sergey.... here with Arkadiy. Lisa and I thought it was quite funny how both look like they are thinking, "Get this picture over with!"The following night Emil decided he wanted some more Russian foods and I was craving more red caviar, so at 8 pm we loaded up and headed to Ali Baba. Oh man....we bought two bottles of Tarhun... the best drink you will ever drink. It's a summer-type soda made from tarragon. We bought the bologna with pastachios, lavash, ikra (2 jars), Armenian cheese (it was gone the next day) and four of those pizza-like things..one with meat and one with cheese. Oh and Emil found this Russian cream cheese that he used to eat when he was little. It was sooooo good! The girls love the Russian foods... I came home from work and Sierra was on her bed with a long oval plate with the jar of caviar, lavash bread, Russian cream cheese and some bologna. That makes me so happy that she is so diverse in her choices!

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Lena has been so happy with her skateboard. I can't get her off of it! However, my little baby was holding my laptop and skating to the kitchen to give it to me.... yes, horrible idea! Considering our luck with laptops these past few months.... And it was inevitable...she nearly dropped it, catching it on it's way down, but now my "a" key is not striking as it's supposed to....again! I will be posting pictures of her skateboarding and the new family toy soon!

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I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! We have mostly just lounged around the house.... playing. What are you doing? Anything exciting going on?

Vodka Swap.. replacing vodka w/ water!

We were having a nice sushi dinner at Lisa's house last Saturday. One wife decided that the guys were drinking too much vodka... sooooo.... she poured the vodka out, put it in a different bottle and filled the vodka bottle up with water!

Too funny! Watch as they figure it out..

Show and Tell Friday - Russian Picture

I am finally participating in Cindy's Show and Tell Friday at her beautiful blog, My Romantic Home. It feels sooooo nice to be back at it. I can't wait to look in on everyone else's blogs and see what treasures they are showing!

I have showed you some of my many Russian items here....and I am going to show you another treasure of mine. I have always been fascinated with Russia and read many books on Russia. When I was very young, like nine or ten years old, I would make my mother take me to the library in my little bitty country town and I would check out what few books on Russia they had. I would read them over and over and over! One of the books had photos of old farm houses and dachas. I found one that I really fell in love it! And then I did something really bad.... I tore the picture out of the book and I swore that when I was old enough to have my own home I was going to frame this picture and put in somewhere in my home!

And I did.... here it is. I love the dark, old withered wood. I love the snow on the rood and the tall beautiful fir trees. I love everything about this picture and I just look at the windows and try to imagine the parties that went on there.... the good food that was made and the stories that were told. I would love to be able to go back and spend just one day in that house. I wonder if this house is still there.

This is the back of the picture. It has a description of what would have been on the opposite back page. In my mothers handwriting in pencil at the bottom is written' "The tales the old dachas have to tell invite attention from every window. This one near Leningrad, Old house at Lisy Nos (Fox's Nose)"

A close up for you.

So now my Russian picture sits on my fireplace mantle.

And I love it there. Do you think I should put it in a darker frame or is this light wood ok?

I often think about how my life turned out. I am now married to a Russian man, I didn't know that he was Russian when I met him because he is shorter and darker than what you would expect a Russian to look like. He is actually an Armenian Russian. I have learned to cook their food, I love their music, I know most of their language.... I still have issues with some parts of their culture, but after 15 years we've worked through about 90% of it!

I thank you so much for stopping by my blog and seeing my Show and Tell. Don't forget to stop by and see everyone else's show and tell! I hope you all have a wonderful three-day weekend!

Do you have anything special planned? Saturday we are going to a jewelry and bead show. Sunday I'm going to get my painting framed that I purchased at an art show last Sunday. So look forward to those posts!

Christmas/New Years Pics... & It's COOOLLLLDDD!!

Everyone is alseep ... the house is quiet....and I have a few moments to finally upload a few of our Christmas and New Year pics. And because I am half asleep still you get the New Year pictures first!

BUT-------> let me first start by telling you it is SOOOOOO cold outside. I jumped up out of bed to put the trash out. I bundled up with long socks, my fleece pajamas (of course), long sleeve shirt, big heavy brown coat and a nice case of bed head covered up by a red beanie. I took the trash out and was only out for two, maybe three minutes. I walked back in and my face was actually burning it was soooo cold! So I turned on my laptop, looked at the temperature...and my friends, here in San Antonio we are at 16 degrees! In my sixteen years I have NEVER seen it get that cold here. I wanted to blog it because I want to remember it. It might not happen for many, many more years to come.
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New Year 2010

We decided to take this New Year's Eve off and stay at home. When we spend New Years with the Russians they believe you need to stay out and celebrate until the first sun of the year comes out....which means we usually stroll in around 6:30 - 7 a.m. Not happening! Especially when I woke up at 5:30 the previous morning to go to work! And my body usually wakes me up two or three hours later anyway so it really just makes for a messed up and wasted day. Since it was a three day weekend I did not want that to happen!
So Emil made some wonderful ground meat shish-kebobs and beet salad. I made mushroom salad and bought a wonderful bottle of champagne. We had a fruit cake...delicious! And we played the Wii all night!

My last picture of 2009 with Lena...

We danced to the music medley they played shortly after the midnight.... for us when the elevator reached the top floor of the Tower of Americas. Even Luigi celebrated with us!
Then the girls decided to kill some zombies in the mall.....

Lena and Emil's last photo together in 2009...

There was for once a really nice picture of me and Emil, but of course my camera errored it out so it wouldn't even download and I had to delete it! Sometimes I really miss my old roll of film cameras! (And of course I posted my resolution at the very bottom of this post!)

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Christmas Dinner 2009 at Lisa's house....

This year Lisa did a small dinner at her house for Christmas. It was so nice with just close friends and Lisa and I are so close, she feels like family. (Sometimes she even slips up and calls me "sis.")

We did the white elephant. There were some funny gifts, wonderful gifts, empty-bag gifts... but don't worry, I ran to the car and got the gift! Emil and Lena were running the show!

The kids played all night!

I brought my karaoke machine... almost EVERYONE sang. Lisa and I sang the most, Elvira, Friends in Low Places, I Will Survive, Margaritaville, Achy Breaky Heart....you name it!

My Papa Bear loves singing his Frank Sinatra!

The ladies gossiped and the men drank....

And everyone ate and ate and ate!

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We had a really nice time celebrating with our friends but I really like just being at home. I usuallly can't wait to get home to my pj's, my Charlie and my bed! I forgot to add above that my New Year resolution is to be a better friend. I don't call back when I say I'm going to. I usually just don't answer the phone, thinking I will call back when I get more time. Then days go by and I feel bad and end up not calling back for many, many weeks sometimes. I need to change that. A real friend should be able to pick up the phone anytime.... even when it's not convient. I want to be THAT friend. I started with Gala... she is so wonderful and sadly, the one I usually push to the back the most. I also pick up more when Lisa calls. And I do call back. I am really trying, no matter how tired I am or how much is going on... to give that person calling me even five minutes if that's all I have. I want to be a better friend and I hope 2010 gets me there!