The Stanalands

So I am having a pretty good (and REALLY LONG) day yesterday full of activities that involved hanging out with my children and niece. My son finished his football practice and was telling my daughter that the high school football coach had come to the school to let them know that the game would be broadcast on the country station, 92.5 The Bear at 7:30. “Am or pm”, she asked. My son simply looked at her. “Am or pm”, she asked again. “Oh no”, he says to her shaking his head, “I’m pretty sure its FM.”
It took all I had to not laugh out loud. I didn’t want to embarrass him, but I thought that was Hilarious.

So later in the afternoon, my friend Victoria and I were riding down the road with my three and a half year old niece. Keep in mind that I had been running hard and solid ALL DAY LONG. I was feeling pretty ragged at this point and my mouth was starting to taste pretty unclean and I had that ‘not so fresh feeling’. I turned to my friend Victoria and said “My mouth tastes like I have been eating dog poop.” to which my darling little niece swiftly replied, “I didn’t even know you had a dog!” I almost got tears in my eyes. SO funny and so cute.

There was more, but then I would become one of those people…

I went to the neurologist this morning. She suggested that I do a sleep study. She things that my headaches are a combination of migraines, stress, and sleep apnea. We shall see as things progress.

I have been diagnosed with migraines. This isn’t new, but my headaches have been getting more frequent and more painful. They are starting to give me severe anxiety because not only is my head hurting, but my body is hurting from lying in the bed constantly. I went to the doctor today and he referred me to a neurologist. I will see the neurologist either this week or next week. I talked to a good friend earlier this afternoon and she mentioned that another friend of her’s had problems with migraines that were related to fluorescent lighting. Once I thought about it, my headaches really started getting bad once we started changing over all of our bulbs to the “eco-friendly” compact fluorescent bulbs.

I intend to change out all of my bulbs in my house back to the old energy wasters ASAP and see how that works for my headaches. I will let you all know how it goes.

I started my own bookkeeping and accounting company at the beginning of 2008. I have had a few clients over the past year and half. I have also picked up and lost clients in that same period of time. What I have discovered is that either no one needs me, or everyone needs me. I tell clients that I am always available for them. I have always been able to live up to this, because I have not had a heavy work load, and clients rarely call me outside of little questions here and there.

Recently, I have had several people call on me at one time.  I believe that I can handle this, once I sit down and work out my schedule. I plan on doing a fantastic job so that I not only retain the clients I have, but also pick up some new clients along the way.

Mid-winter break arrived this year with little or no winter attached. Savannah seemed like the destination of choice. It has been a hard year with only a few tiny day-trips thrown in to local attractions. Brian has vacation days and we wanted to go somewhere with all of our children. We have taken them to Chattanooga, and our original destination that time was Savannah but thunder storms prevented us from making it. THIS TIME…we made it!

Friday Night
We arrived at our hotel around 9:30 on Friday night. Normal people would have headed to bed in order to start their day fresh on Saturday. Us? No. We went to our room and changed into bathing suits so that we could go swimming in the indoor heated pool. Woo Hoo! That is the key reason that we chose this hotel. (That and the fact that they have suites with enough beds for all of us to sleep without throwing anyone in the floor!!)

Saturday Morning

We woke up bright and early despite the fact that we all stayed up until 1am watching Battlestar Galactica. (We HAD to) After breakfast we decided to head to the Air Force Museum. I wasn’t expecting much, and I was pleasantly surprised. The museum was set up to follow our Air Force’s involvement throughout WWII. We were lucky enough to have someone offer to take our picture so that we could all be in it.

The museum had a beautiful garden with beautiful benches and an awesome chapel.

After leaving the museum we headed back to the hotel and made lunch. The lack of sleep caught up to us and we were all in desperate need of a nap. zzzzz    zzzzzzz    zzzzz

Obviously, there are no pictures of Brian and I sleeping. That is simply because everyone who could have taken the picture was asleep.
After our nap, we all headed back into the van for a driving tour of Savannah and Tybee. We were out long enough to stop for dinner on Tybee Island. MMMMMMM!

We then headed back to the hotel for a few hours of swimming and then off to bed. (Jonas Bros are on Saturday Night Live Tonight!!)

How much is that kitty in the bag??

Batman likes to get in small spaces. He crawls in boxes, in shoes, under desks. Here he’s in a bag.

Check out this adorable video!!

Sarah saying the pledge.

I got soooooo lazy in 2007 and 2008. I really have to be on track this year. Brian and I have set a financial goal for ourselves and I want to meet it. Not only that, but I have educational goals that I would like to meet before I have grey hair. It is almost 2am, and I should have been sound asleep for at LEAST three hours by now. I have two appointments to keep before 9 am tomorrow. I am really not a morning person. BLAH! I just finished a statistics quiz that I put off taking all week long. Tomorrow night I have a T-O-N of statistics homework to get done and I am dreading that too. If I can get up and get going in the morning, then tomorrow will be a good day. Then, if I can do the same thing on Thursday and Friday, I will call this a good week. If I can just get motivated to do this for the rest of the year…I will meet my goals. Pray for me. I really need it.

(Oh, and I put up a white-board in my office last night with my daily tasks on it. ~ I get to mark one out of sixteen items off before I get in the bed. YAY FOR ME!!)

I finally got my cat. Kitten actually. I have been waiting until we were moved in, and since we are now moved in I went into overdrive looking for a pet. My friend Julia saw a sign that said “free kittens” and called me immediately. (I have been letting everyone know that I wanted to find a kitten) Brian and I went to the location of the sign and picked up one of the kittens. I tried for two, but I was DENIED. (I will find another one mysteriously on our door step in a few months, I am sure!)

Taylor had not been feeling well in church that morning, so right afterward she proceeded to fill our minivan with vomit. I got to clean that up before being able to drive all the way home with the kitten. We got home and she went to bed. Our new kitty is officially a member of the family, since it decided to comfort Taylor while she rested. Its HI-Lariously adorable.

Once we got home we had to turn back around and head to the store for the material to make drapes for our new living room. We came home and I was working the sewing machine so furiously it was smoking.

I am very proud of my accomplishment. I think they look great, and the afternoon sun is not going to be baking our p’leather couch.

We have just recently moved down the road, and our new house came with cattle. (We are renting this house and it happens to be on 30 acres that the landlords also keep cattle on) There are some curious calves that have been getting out for the past couple of days, and getting into things in general.

A few days ago as we were leaving for church, we discovered on of the calves had gotten inside a barbed wire barrier that was around a tree in the pasture. We figured it would find its way out eventually, and if it didn’t it could certainly wait until after church to be dealt with. He was out by the time we got home.

We took this picture on the phone. I am starting to wonder about the intelligence of cows.

So day before yesterday, I show up to the house and there is a calf running wildly around the house. (Again, out of the pasture) Because I am so brave, I called the landlord in a panic that there was a cow out and on the loose. I think she was amused that I was so freaked out. I hung up the phone, gathered my wits and my nerve and “shoo’d” the calf back into the pasture gate. For those of you that don’t know, I am extremely afraid of any animal that is larger than a cat. One day I might tell you the full story of me swimming with the dolphins and narrowly escaping with my life. (har har)

This morning, I got up and looked outside to see one of the calves with a large black plastic bag in its mouth. I thought to myself, “surely this can’t be good” and I once again called the landlord. I didn’t detect amusement, but more irritation with the fact that I seem to call every few minutes to announce the new antics of the cows. Brian went out to the pasture and rescued the less than brilliant beast from its quandary.  As soon as Brian went up to it, it ran for its mommy and dropped the bag. (For the record, we do not use black garbage bags)

All of that brings me to this afternoon. After our older kids arrived home, there was yet another calf out of the pasture. I sent them to close the driveway gate, and then collectively my family and I herded this animal back to the spot in the fence that it escaped from. These animals are quite skittish, it seems. They will come near you if you have feed for them, but beyond that they prefer to be left alone. The bull stares at me menacingly whenever I go near the fence. I think its my red hair. Ole’.