Lots of Things to Share

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In random order... Dave was the Salutatorian of his class, so he had to give a speech at graduation. The picture isn't great because the lighting in there was BAAAAD - at least for my little camera. :) We wrote the speech on the way home from Auburn Saturday night. I say we, because he spoke and I wrote notes in the dark. :) It was a great speech, and he did a great job with the delivery.

I have no pictures of him accepting his diploma because it happened too quickly. Sorry.











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This is Dave and his friend Ric, after the ceremony.












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This picture was taken before the wedding Saturday evening. I insisted on it because we had not had our picture made together since our wedding. Plus, I love the dress and he looks so handsome all dressed up. He didn't like the tie very much, but it was coordinated to match my dress. ;)







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The is the back of his gown with the fun hood attached. Purple is the color for law degrees, yellow and black are the school's colors, and the tam and style of robe denote a doctoral degree. That's right, he's a doctor now. :)

















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This is the picture I made him pose for with the plaque he received from the banquet Friday night.

To recap, we went to the annual awards banquet at The Club Friday evening. He found out then that he was the Salutatorian and received a plaque for that honor. He also found out he would have to give a speech at graduation on Sunday. Despite the time crunch, he was excited about it. Thank goodness, I would have been a wreck. :)

Saturday, we took Georgia swimming at the park because we all needed some exercise. We left Saturday afternoon for Auburn to attend a wedding. Dave's college roomate got married, and they had a great ceremony and party afterward. I wish we had been able to stay the night, but we had a speech to write and a graduation to attend. On the way home, he wrote his speech.

Sunday morning, we went to graduation, and everyone loved the speech. Then we had lunch afterward with the families, and dinner at Daddy's Sunday evening. Then we crashed. I'm still tired. Mondays suck. :)

I Forgot the Camera

That's right, I forgot it. I reminded myself a dozen times last night and this morning to put the camera in my bag, I just never made it to the camera to put it in my bag with that thought in my head. :) Sorry, no pictures of the banquet tonight. Hopefully I will remember it for the rest of the things we have to do this weekend. Oh well, if Dave gets any awards tonight, I'll make him pose with them later for pictures. He will LOVE it. :)

He got his cap and gown yesterday for graduation. I truly believe that the final test in receiving your doctorate degree is figuring out how to wear the little cape thingie that comes with the gown. It looks really neat, but we don't know how to work it. :) I think that's why the graduates have to be at graduation 3 hours early - so they can dress them all. :) I will definitely post pictures of him in that, because he's going to look so cool - if you've ever been to a college graduation, you know what kind I'm talking about. His ensemble will be similar to what the professors on the stage wear, though the colors are different to indicate his law degree. I might have to get my PhD one day so I can wear a fun cap and gown.

Things that Make You Say "GRRRR!"

Brought to you by the letter "G". :)

This morning, I had an epiphany. I often wonder, while wasting away in traffic, what makes morning rush hour so much slower than evening rush hour (excluding those afternoons when wrecks make the interstate an obstacle course)? As I was racing along at 10 miles an hour, I observed the woman behind me shaking a bottle that looked suspiciously like liquid foundation. I knew she was not about to put her face on while driving up the interstate with her kid in the car! But she did, only I didn't get to watch the whole process because as we started to move from a dead stop to 15 miles an hour, I left her in my dust. Apparently, it's difficult to maintain a steady speed and apply foundation at the same time. One has more success when one comes to a complete stop first. :) I only wish that the people BEHIND her could see what she was doing. My epiphany? Women putting on makeup seriously hold up traffic. If you don't have time to do that before you leave your house, GET UP EARLIER!!!! Men, don't get too excited, because I don't know how many times I've seen men driving and READING, or SHAVING - seriously, can you see past that opened newspaper in your windsheild!?!? So, if you are one of those drivers that acts "idiot" during rush hour traffic, please, stay away from me.

Another thing..

Why would you make a tube of lip gloss with an applicator that does not reach the bottom? Hmm? I can see that there is plenty of lip gloss in there, but I CAN'T REACH IT!!

I had some more saved up, but I'm starting to sound grumpy. :) Seriously, we've been so blessed. Please continue to pray for our friend, and for Dave in his new job. Hopefully I will have some fun pictures to post after this weekend. We have a banquet, a wedding, and graduation this weekend,then, the swearing-in Wednesday in front of the Alabama Supreme Court. I should have some good pictures - provided I don't forget the camera, like I did my keys when I locked myself out of the house yesterday. GRRRR. :)

Warning: Sad Stuff Follows

I had back-to-back bad phone calls today. The first one was to tell me that Grandpa died this morning. :( That wasn't a surprise; he's been sick for a long time and they called hospice in about three weeks ago. His heart was bad, among other things. It's sad, but at least he isn't suffering anymore.

The second call was from my husband to tell me that the wife of a friend of his died. This was very sudden and unexpected. She was about thirty, and they had been married a little over a year and she had a 5-year old daughter. Plus, they just brought their 8 week old twins home from the hospital two weeks ago. He just passed the bar with my husband. They aren't sure how she died, but think it was an anuerysm. Please pray for this family...they are really going to need it.

I know this is depressing, but bad always comes with good, so why should I only blog the good stuff? So, we have two visitations and funerals this weekend. Death is a little easier to stomach when the person dying has lived a long life - especially when they spent the end of it suffering, but it just seems so wrong when a young mother dies suddenly and leaves a very young family behind. I don't even know what to think; I cannot fathom losing Dave.

A Busy Weekend

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Saturday, Dave and I visited some friends of ours at their property in Childersburg. Our friend was clearing some land he just bought, so we were hanging out and watching him rip things out of the ground with a front-end loader. That was pretty cool. Dave actually got to drive the front-end loader, and I have to admit I was just a little jealous. :) Our friends have three little girls, who came equipped with rubber rain boots and dune buggy. I wished I had some rain boots to play in the mud, but I played in it anyway. We had a blast riding the dune buggy. The girls made all sorts of mud sculptures, and of course, the littlest one refused to keep her shoes on. Mud just feels too good on your bare toes, you know? :)

We also went shopping for lawyer clothes, much to Dave's dismay. Lawyer clothes are pretty freakin' expensive, but you have to dress the part. He got 2 new suit coats, 4 pairs of suit pants, 3 pairs of khakis, a sport coat, 3 dress shirts, 4 ties, socks, and Monday he went back for black dress shoes. I think that will be enough to get us started. :) Saturday night we crashed.

Sunday we went to Sunday School and church and the grocery store (yuck! I hate grocery shopping.). Then we did a little math tutoring while Georgia played with her dog friend, Lucy. Lucy is a 7-month-old Golden Retriever, and she is going to be HUGE when she's full grown. You can see in the pictures that she's already as big as Georgia, though I don't think she weighs as much yet. Georgia played at Lucy's house while we were gone all day Saturday, then Lucy came to our house while we helped Joshua with his math homework. As you can imagine, Georgia was one tired brown dog Sunday night. She was so tired that she passed out in the floor and didn't even get up to follow us around. A tired dog is a good dog. :)

The kitties also played outside all day Sunday and Sunday night, so they slept all day long Monday. When I got home from work Monday afternoon, they were still sleeping - I think they must not sleep at all when they stay outside. Jewel has become quite the outside cat; I have to make her come inside when I leave for work, and this morning she was pestering Dave to let her out. Silly, persistent beast.

Proof of My Swimming Dog

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Georgia and I walked to the park last night for some exercise and a swim. I finally remembered to take a tennis ball with me, and that was just the thing to keep her focused on swimming instead of the people walking by. Apparently, sticks are a dime a dozen, but tennis balls are one of a kind (in the creek, anyway). We had a little incident on the first dive in when she forgot to close her mouth and nearly drowned herself, but she came out and puked up creek water and bits of rawhide (which she ate three days ago - this is a testament to the fact that rawhide is not easily digested). I guess that week off between swimming trips got her a little out of practice, or it could have been the tennis ball that made her too excited to close her mouth. Who knows? After that, she did great, though she seemed to forget that balls roll and kept dropping it and letting it roll back into the water. Silly beast.

If you have pets and enjoy gardening, there is a product you need to avoid called Cocoa Mulch. It contains the same toxic chemical that is in chocolate, theobromine - only in a much larger quantity. You can find this stuff at places like Lowe's, Home Depot, etc. and the packaging makes NO mention that it can be harmful to your animals. While not all dogs will eat it, it only takes 9 oz. of the stuff to kill a 5o lb. dog. Don't risk it! Read more about it here: http://web.archive.org/web/20031013173740/http://www.aspca.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12729 .

That's all for my public service announcement. :)

More People News

Not only do we have a lawyer now, we have a lawyer with a job! Dave was hired by a small Birmingham firm called Gorham and Associates; this is the link to the webpage: http://www.gorhamandassociates.com/CM/Custom/Home.asp. This opportunity will allow him to get some on-the-job training with a regular paycheck and health insurance (two of our biggest concerns about opening his own office right away). He will basically be assisting the owner, Bobby Gorham, for the first year - doing paperwork and sitting second chair in trials - in exchange for all the knowledge he can soak up in that year (plus salary and insurance). After a year, he will be able to maintain his own case load. I'm really excited for him because this is a great chance to practice law with someone to guide him as he learns. I know he is much more comfortable with this situation than he would be starting his own firm right now. He knows the law, now he just has to learn how to practice law. :) His first day at his new job will be May 15th. Please continue praying for him as he embarks on this newest adventure.

In other news:
We have a baby tomato on one of our plants! I was going to take a picture of it, but I waited until it was too dark last night. The plants don't look like they've grown much taller, but there's already a tomato out there and most of them have blooms on them. So far, the poor things have not been pilfered by a Brown Dog, but then, they don't have large, red tomatoes on them yet, either. (If you are wondering, yes, she LOVES tomatoes and has been known to steal one off a plant before.) On the subject of tomatoes, we tried some frozen, battered green tomatoes from Wal-Mart the other day, and they were really good! Of course, fresh ones are always better, but these were better than I expected a frozen green tomato to taste. Frying them was an adventure since we never fry anything, but they turned out really well. And, like everything else, the more burnt the crust is, the better. :) Seriously, we always like the crusty burned parts of things, and the best tomatoes we ate were nearly black (the crust, not the tomato). Yum. So, if you need some fried green tomatoes and don't have any green tomatoes yet (well, I have a tiny baby one, but we aren't going to fry it), try these frozen ones. They come in a white and clear bag and they are some kind of generic looking brand that looks a lot like Southeastern Meats frozen vegetables. That's probably enough rambling for now.....