31 January 2011

Prayers

Would you say a prayer for Rebecca and her family?
She grew up at the church that I grew up at but due to her health has had to move several times for different treatments. She is having a major surgery for her pancreatitis tomorrow.
Not that I can even place myself in the same league, but I was hospitalized for 5 days when Tucker was a month old for pancreatitis. It was not fun and very, very painful.
You can click on the picture above to read her full story.

30 January 2011

This Guy

is not feeling well
well, i think he's "feeling" ok
but his body thinks otherwise
today is day 2 of 100+ fever
poor little man
it's a good thing he still looks handsome even when he's sick

29 January 2011

Etiquette

Alright, I openly (and obviously I am writing this on here) admit that I am not the queen of etiquette. I frequently cut people off when they are talking, wear white after Labor Day (or is that before?). and have no clue which fork or spoon to use at a fancy restaurant (but I have only been to one like three times so I get a pass on that one).

But I do know the basics: don't wear your hat inside someone's house, don't put your elbows on the table, don't talk with food in your mouth, chew with your mouth closed, place your napkin in your lap while eating, (can you tell that we are working on table manners right now!?) etc.

There is however a completely different set of etiquette rules when you are out in public. And while in Dallas I observed some great rule breakers. Now you have to understand that lasik is an elective procedure, so you would assume that those people waiting for their appointments at the lasik office would be of a slightly higher caliber of etiquette followers. You would be wrong. (Or at least I was)

When in a waiting room:


Do NOT engage in a phone call for 45 minutes about your bodily fluids and those bodily fluids of your family members. I am greatly sorry that you are sick, but that implores the question, why are you in this waiting room talking about it instead of at home or at a family doctor's office?
Do NOT talk on your cell phone so loudly that the entire waiting room can hear (that really goes for any place).
Do NOT curse repeatedly on said phone (again, goes for anywhere).
Do NOT read the subtitles on the tv out loud. We may all be in the waiting room to have our vision corrected but we can all read, to ourselves.
Do NOT come out of the bathroom and heave a sigh of relief while at the same time fanning your posterior. We ALL know what you were doing in there and we are all trying to rid that image from our mind.
Do NOT bring your toddler and let them run around the room grabbing and licking the tables. Really?
Do NOT allow your toddler to grab my purse. I may be a mom but I can still have my personal space. I will not be held responsible for anything that may or may not happen while your germ infested monster has her hand down bag. You have been warned.
Do NOT go up to the counter 10 times to check on the status of your appointment. It's only been 15 minutes dude, take a chill pill.
Do NOT go up to the counter to flirt with the ubber cute and skinny receptionists. News flash: they're 17.
Do NOT turn the channel on the tv. There's a clearly marked sign that says so.

28 January 2011

Officially: Goodbye Tilden

Today, WE CLOSE.
{huge, gigantic, enormous sigh of relief}
This pot hole laden road has been hard, but worth it.
{and really it hasn't been as bad or as long as some people have had to go thru when selling their home}
We are officially homeless. 
Yahoo!
So without further adieu, I proudly say 
Goodbye Tilden.

 Goodbye 50" tv that we sold with the house. Goodbye fun red shelves and beautiful, refinished, real wood floors.
 Goodbye plantation shutters. Too bad you didn't really work at keeping the light out.
 Goodbye dining room. Goodbye chandelier that Stuart took a week to hang.
 Goodbye really steep, attic stairs. Luckily I was the only one that ever fell down you.
 Goodbye Tyson's room.
 Goodbye bathroom that Stuart took 9 months to renovate. G-O-O-D-B-Y-E.

 Goodbye Tucker's room.
 Goodbye my room.
 Goodbye front loading washer and dryer that Stuart bought off craigslist for an insanely low price and fixed with a $60 part.
 Goodbye closet. You served all our clothes' needs very well.
 Goodbye my bathroom. You were small but you were mine.
 Goodbye big backyard.
 Goodbye pantry that had no shelves and Stuart built new ones for.
 Goodbye new stainless steel refrigerator that Stuart bought on craigslist for $100 and fixed with a $8 part.
 Goodbye new counter tops.
 Goodbye new shelves that Stuart built to fix the hole left by pulling out the old wall oven and replacing it with a brand new oven. Goodbye stainless steel dishwasher also purchased on craigslist for way cheap.
(Can you tell we like craigslist?)
 Goodbye built ins.
 Goodbye garage.

 Goodbye white house.

*while it might seem that I am emotional about the selling of our first ever house, trust me, I am not. I could not be more elated than I am now. 

27 January 2011

I know, I know

I don't watch this show, but I had to post this tear jerker of a video.
Gosh, I'm such a sucker.


Future Firefighter

While Stu and I were in Dallas for my lasik, a close family friend asked the boys if they would like to come to the fire station where he worked. Of course the answer was yes!

*BTW, my mother is the commentator



At the fire station from Clarissa Doss on Vimeo.

26 January 2011

Yet another moment when I wish Stuart would take over

{getting dressed after his shower}
Tucker: Mommy, what's that?
Me: What's what?
Tucker: That. (pointing to his pee-pee-ish)
Me: Your pee-pee?
Tucker: No! What's THAT? (pointing to his "family jewels")
Me: Well. OK. Those are your testicles.
Tucker: Tell-ti-culs.
Me: Kind of. It's test-i-cul.
Tucker: They're weird.
Me: Yup. They sure are.

20 January 2011

Days

1 day till I head back to Arlington for more eye surgery (just an enhancement and yes we knew we were going to have to do this)
6 days till we hopefully close on our WF house
11 days till Tucker's 4th birthday
22 days till Stuart becomes a hick and goes quail hunting with some co-workers
52 days till my baby sister becomes Mrs. Haught

18 January 2011

Shameless

Because I think this a super cool giveaway and I totally want to support any and all individuals who are attempting to adopt, I entered this giveaway.

BUT WAIT!

You can too! Just clicky-click on over to Pitter Patter and enter. :)

Bike Riding with Grandma

{really she's his great-grandma, but we don't tell}


Tyson bike-riding with Grandma from Clarissa Doss on Vimeo.

17 January 2011

Tucker Really Wants a Little Sibling


Too bad! A second cousin will just have to do. :)

13 January 2011

Impromptu Road Trip

Last week (I think), we all woke up early and decided to go with Stuart to work. It was a great way to get out of the house and also to really "see" what it is that my charming husband does all day. Plus the boys got to see big 'ole tractors and such; you can never see too many of those.

Since we were so far down south, we thought it would be niffty to just go ahead and drive on down to Corpus and Padre Island.

Oh what fun!

The boys have never seen the ocean (or a large body of water for that matter) and the giggles and shrieks that came out of the mouths made the trip all the more worth it.

We started with lunch at a local eatery:


Which we quickly realized was most excellent.

Then we proceeded south a bit more till we ran out of road (sort of).

 {pardon my cankles, I just wanted to document that I was actually involved in our little endevour}
 Tucker could NOT contain his excitement. He also could NOT contain jumping and crawling in the water!


The boys meet the ocean from Clarissa Doss on Vimeo.








Don't you worry! I was smart enough to bring a change of the clothes (and underwear) for the boys. :)
The water was quite chilly, but so worth getting wet for!

We ended our day by driving by Stuart's high school and some other locations that he remembered. Then off to Dairy Queen and a very tiring drive home.

11 January 2011

Here's the deal

I'm over home buying and selling.
For real.
And it's not even that I am emotionally attached to buying or selling a house. It's just that the whole dang process of so laborious. And riddled with potholes and loopholes.

We put our house on the market October 18 with the knowledge that it might take awhile to sell due to the time of the year and the amount of "inventory" currently out there. No biggie. We were more than ready to wait and then end up having to make some changes in about 6 months. Not that we wanted to wait 6 months to sell our house, we are just realistic. A smattering of showings and then at the beginning of December a real offer came in. We were obviously thrilled and jumped on the chance to "unload" our burden on someone else. It's not that we didn't like our house; in fact, we quite enjoyed it. It just that making a mortgage payment plus utilities on an empty house ever month makes my anxiety meter go off the scale.

The offer was just under our asking price and the new buyers wanted to move in asap since they were also selling their current house. We would sign a lease agreement and in a matter of days close in the house.

Not so fast!

Does anything ever go as planned?

Nope.

One teeny, tiny detail in our contract with the new homeowners was the we could not close on our house until they closed on their house. Our Realtor assured us that this was not a big deal since our new owners were already in contract with their new owners. Just a technicality.

We move, literally, on with the assumption that we are closing on January 7th.

I was doing a little jitterbug as the date approached but then the smacked with reality when our Realtor called and said their was a little snafu.

The buyer for our buyer's house was having an issue with their lender due to some phrasing in the appraisal of our home owner's property. Apparently a horse barn was appraised at a very high value (it must be the Cadillac of horse barns) and so the verbage needed to be changed to reflect this. This ordinarily would not be that stressful except for the fact that our home owner's buyer is now thinking about switching lenders because he is so frustrated with Wells Fargo and their extra long process.

If he switches that means it's going to take XX amount of time to start ALL OVER AGAIN.

All the while, we are waiting (along with our buyers) for all this gibberish to happen so that WE can close on OUR house.

THEN (yes, there IS a then) I get a text from our Realtor yesterday evening that the gas had been shut off at our house because our tenants (I guess we are landlords until further notice) smelled gas and called the gas company, who then rapidly turned it off "to be safe." Again, this wouldn't have been that huge of an issue except that 1) last night was the coldest night of the year in Wichita Falls and 2) this is OUR problem because it's OUR house still.

No worries. Our handy little Realtor called her own plumber to head out to our house today and it was discovered that there were a couple of valves with issues (which he fixed). All is better now that the gas has been restored to our house and our tenants.

So here's the deal: we have no idea when we are going to close on our house.
And the nice little cold sores I got overnight would explain my anxiety over it.

Construction Zone




Why not?

10 January 2011

A Not So Nice Letter

Dear Allergies,

I
H-A-T-E
You.

You can go away forever,
Clarissa

08 January 2011

In No Particular Order

we should have closed on our house yesterday but due to some verb-age on the buyer's house needing to be fixed, we are in limbo.

stupid legal jargon.
we are still using the a/c. it's january.
tyson has impetigo on his face.


i feel like a horrible mom for not taking him to the dr sooner.
stuart has today off. this makes me happy.
i scheduled my eye enhancement (finally).
because my eyes were so bad, i was informed that i would have to come back for an enhancement because it wasn't safe to try and laser that much in one session.
good thing, because i've noticed myself squinting some recently.
we had an absolute blast at the beach last week.
it's official that we are going to have to plan another trip sometime in the not so distant future.
my mom and sister are in wedding planning turbo.
they spent all day yesterday stuffing, stamping and compiling wedding invitations.
yesterday we also took the boys to get their ring bearer outfits.


just imagine a sangria tie and vest and brown leather shoes.
adorable.
then picture their oh-so-cute cousin kate in a frilly little number and you have an ensemble that is going to be fun!
tucker's 4th birthday is rapidly approaching (feb 1) and i have yet to decide if we are going to have a party or not.
and if we are, i have yet to plan for said party.
apparently my ocd hasn't kicked in for that yet.

07 January 2011

If You Say So

Tyson: When we have our baby, it's gonna like the strawberry green one.
{collective gasp and head turning to stare at Tyson}
Me: Oh really?
Tyson: Yeah.
Me: So {gathering my confusion}we're having another baby huh? {we are NOT}
Tyson: Yeah.
Me: Do you want to be a big brother?
Tyson: Well when we have another baby, I'm going to share my legos with him.
Me: So you want to have a boy?
Tyson: Yup.
Mimi: You don't want to have a baby girl?
Tyson: NO!
{hahahaha!}
Me:  Who's going to have this baby?
Tyson: WE are!
Me: Oh really?
Aunt George: So you want another brother like Tucker?
Tyson: Well our baby is going to be my friend.
Me: Your friend?
Tyson: Uh huh. Then I'll have a brother and a friend.
Me: Well, alright then.

06 January 2011

i love them

04 January 2011

Small taste


01 January 2011

2010: A Year In Picture Review