Consider it Pure Joy My Friends

When you take off your prim and proper face, cancel all your plans and jet off on a last minute gambling spree to celebrate the new year!!   I can't explain how happy I am to just let go and go - not think about all the hurt feelings or people without plans but just jump on a crazy decision and go for it!! 

It is my new new years resolution to try to be more fun - I used to be really really fun and carefree, but somewhere along the way I got kinda ridged and proper and different.  I've noticed for a year or so I'm not as sparkly but I put a lovely dinenr party on - so this year I'm going to try and be sparkly and put a nice dinner party on and see how it goes...... Its in the eyes - as Troy Polamalu says - you asked with your eyes.

So thats my goal - to sparkle and shine and let my floors go to the dogs!!

Now onto more important things like Christmas pictures!!!

Christmas Eve is usually candle light service at church but the weather was so crazy we did it at home, Dad read the story and Gail provided background music and Christmas carols - it was so special and intimate I almost hope we do it this way every year!!

Always need a gratuitous sister picture!!! Two shiny shirts, one velour dress and a full costumed elf - sounds about right!

Because the weather was so bad we got to bring the puppies with us and a Christmas miracle happened - Daddy let them stay in the house with us - this is a pretty huge deal and they take up a whole lotta room but it was great.  They only escaped the backyard once but their tracks in the snow made it easy for Josh to find them!

Monday the 29th we got to do Christmas with Ricky and Julies boys - seating was girls table and a boys table - equally split 5 & 5 - first time ever! The boys took these for us and we took one of them.  The man table had football and the ladies table had lots of chit chat!!

Now that I've had nephews for about a year now I'm getting much more used to them - having all sisters boys horrified me.  They are loud, wild, unpredictable, love throwing stuff, punching, kicking, running unsafely and they're sometimes smell - but now I'm starting to love all those things and can appreciate the unbridled enthusiasm with which they approach everything!! It makes Christmas a whole lot more fun when you get to see faces like this:

Plus kids toys are always way fun to play with!! Lincoln Logs and Monster trucks, screaming monkeys, books oh my! - can't beat it!!

White Elephant Anyone?

Since we are having some renovations done on our offices and they are jackhammering the floor up and I can't think and even baby pictures aren't cheering me up.... I figured I'd relive the funness of last night and share it with all of you too!!

O.k. I lied - this baby picture did cheer me up a little......

Just for fun here's the history on a "white elephant" I love trivia!
A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth.

The term derives from the sacred white elephants kept by Southeast Asian monarchs in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. To possess a white elephant was regarded (and is still regarded in Thailand and Burma) as a sign that the monarch reigned with justice and power, and that the kingdom was blessed with peace and prosperity.[1] The tradition derives from tales which associate a white elephant with the birth of Buddha, as his mother was reputed to have dreamed of a white elephant presenting her with a lotus flower, a symbol of wisdom and purity, on the eve of giving birth.[2] Because the animals were considered sacred and laws protected them from labor, receiving a gift of a white elephant from a monarch was simultaneously both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because the animal was sacred and a sign of the monarch's favour, and a curse because the animal had to be retained and could not be put to much practical use, at least to offset the cost of maintaining it.

So there is your history lesson for the day - how smart do you feel now?

Now to our white elephant:

The item of the night we first had to establish all the rules and write them down on a piece of wood with permanent marker so everyone was on the same page - typical stuff but by the end of the night we had 2 amendments: 1) You can't steal something if the person you are stealing from doesn't make eye contact - Jean added that one after she gave it a whirl to keep the snuggy from Julie - but Julie got her to look.

2nd Amendment - you may not use the item you draw until the game is over - like popcorn, snuggies, peppermint shot glassed (so cool) among other things......

Hot Item of the Night:

Snuggie in leopard print - pretty sure everyone is going to go out and get one now cause they're awesome and pretty cheap.  Gail got it, Jean stole it and Julie finished it up and froze it.

Gail rocked it out and her boyfriend Eric - yeah his shirt has a bar of soap on the front with a speech bubble that said "Rub me on your butt" - oh dears!

Jean went wild with her win and did a reverse wear, backlit halo pose - she was an excellent hostess for the event even if she is a bad looser!

Julie locked it down and went for the Andre the Giant standing on a chair I'm the winner and you're not angle.  "I'm here for your soul!"

The Best Gift Winner!

Hands down went to Mr. Ricky Davis for the contraption he build by a man for a man and endorsed by Chuck Norris!  The ultimate man tool!

It was a plunger, chapstick holder, coozie with full beer, toothpick holder, spatula and tongs, a knife, flashlight, remote control, beer bottle opener, and finally a toilet paper receptacle.  It was amazing!!

Mom and dad tried to figure out how to use the chapstick which was mounted inside the plunger and was just high enough that you could use it without getting plunger all over your face...... I don't know that I need chapstick that bad!!

Josh opened a millionaire starter kit which had lottery tickets but it got stolen by Eric - so he drew again and won me this fabulous bracelet!! (I got a old wine bottle with wax dripped down and greenery stuck in the top.....)  He also won a jar of beans....

Ain't no party like the Wampler, McNabb, Davis, Huecker, Badger party!

Having a bad day?

How about I cheer you up with some babies and snow! Really what could be better? The crazy thing is that they all occurred in Houston - record breaking snowfall and I was there to be part of the magic.

This is my best friend Christine C. and her new (9 1/2 month old) baby Brenna - I LOVE getting to spend time with them! Brenna gets to go skiing in February so we went coat shopping for her - how beautiful is she?!!

It was snowing so hard in Houston that they canceled all the flights after 6:00 pm outta there - my original flight was at 7:30 pm so I got bumped to the last seat on the last flight out but the snow was so pretty it was totally worth it! This Texas girl doesn't get to see much of it!

So after a great day of relaxing, shopping and soaking in the snow we got one group shot and then I was off like a person in fear of being stranded! As a side note I am dressed like a hobo cause I thought we were going hiking outside in 30 degree weather and layered on lots of clothes......

We did it!

We glided through Thanksgiving and oodles and oodles of football (that wasn't so much of a glide but for another day). We got everything gussied up and ready to go and then I had nothing to do!!! I had prepared so well and had such great help that I had time to spare!!!! I just loved how everything turned out so wanted to share pictures of how purdy it all turned out.

The weather was so gorgeous and the men folk fried the turkey and soaked in the weather - it was amazing that in my own backyard there was a force field of such manliness that I couldn't cross into the circle - I tried twice and quickly retreated feeling very awkward and out of place - it was a strong 3 generation force field and you can't mess with that!

And I found out that when you make a purdy table for pretty creative people they incorporate elements of it into their personal style and rock it!

All in all I think my two favorite hoodlums summed it up: Touchdown!

See - the Cliffs of Insanity!

My top favorite movie ever is The Princess Bride - and in it they approach the Cliffs of Insanity which they will scale and then escape to happily ever after (my spin on it right now)

These are the actual cliffs of insanity from the movie - and you know what my cliffs of insanity are - my head! I can't get outta my head sometimes - and as we get geared up for Thanksgiving I made "the list". I always do better when I get every single thought I think is important and must happen, look at it, rank, evaluate and then tell hubby we have to get "THE LIST" done or my life will be over and I'll die.

Fortunately he is AMAZING and puts up with my crazy and knows that after I write everything out in "the list" I will calm down and realize its doable and that he'll be right by my side helping me out. Plus we have the added bonus of having my Sister In Law staying with us and helping out.

I had a finish time of Sunday at noon - and by Saturday morning it was pretty clear that that list was toast - we were going to rock it out and beat it way ahead of schedule - until Bear got out and I poked at the ceiling...... then this happened and it was decidedly not on the list.

Our super sweet amazing ninja escape dogs have found a new way out of the yard so Josh had to build a fence to keep them in - and then he had to go to Home Depot (1st of 2 trips that weekend) to get stain - and while he was out I went into the formal dining room to fix a thing on the chandelier and ended up peeling all the popcorn off the ceiling and had to scrape, sand, retexture and paint it before we had people over for dinner Sunday night ....... so then hubby grabbed a saw and trimmed the trees up in the front yard and cleared out all the vines - INSANE and we totally finished the main list but also A LOT of ancillary things too!

So now we just get to sit around and sip mojito's and enjoy smooth sailing knowing we're done with projects! ; )

Teamwork works!!!!

Every "capital L" has a "capital W"

So I've been pushing the idea of a blog to Elyse since I've learned of her "following fetish" (about a year).

My wife’s abridged personality for blogging purpose: She is intriguing, overzealous, family orientated, abundantly descriptive with verbal and written word, her favorite game to play is sadly Scramble, and she got grounded from reading during her adolescence years (I know right....loser with a Capital L).

But as I've found out, during my 28 year old life, is every loser is a winner; hence every “Capital L” has a “Capital W”.

Why start a blog now? - And here we are - "the accelerator" = one of my best friends recent diagnoses with cancer. Just the word "cancer", disregard the definition / types / or common understanding by the general public, motivates individuals to think different, realize life, change life styles, take up a new profession, travel to unforeseen destinations, understand the meaning of life, blah blah blah.

The bottom line: It's a nasty f*ing word - and nobody cares to utter it in a personal conversation.

The top line: I've got a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech University, a Master's Degree in Business Administration from University of Texas at Arlington, self proclaim myself to be a technical and business savant who operates on a "Strategic Business Level", understands and keeps up with everything that's anything in the world of effective and efficient, and here I was.....being woken up from a late evening nap by my wife with her laptop in hand - speaking in tong but clearly gesturing for me to entertain her pink monstrosity of a laptop which screams "I AM PINK" not "I contain valuable self sustaining life pertinent information". And there I was finding out my best friend had cancer, the day after he was diagnosed, via his wife's blog - not a cell phone, Skype, business or personal email, twitter, facebook, myspace, linkedIn, digg.com, google.com, yahoo.com, hard line phone, personal visit, hand written note, or a customizable mail order bear that says "Wish me luck - I have cancer" - but his wife's blog. I didn't even know his wife had a blog; which is beside the point. The point is & was - I don't know anything about blogging besides the typical "it's an online journal & online = potentially anyone noses around in your business".

So my wife is the “Early Adaptor” and I’m somewhere between the Early Majority / Late Majority (Scared User, Get something out of it, value, reassurance.

Our Communication - Précis': I'm reasonably sure the context is incorrect but the word "summary" just didn't do it - and the word "summary" "shifted F7" nicely in Word to Précis.

My wife on herself: has always thought she's better at communicating her thoughts (sometimes but not always) via the written word, but prefers the verbal context because the written takes time.....time we all don't have.

Me on myself: I cut pictures out, save websites, use EverNotes because I secretly freak about forgetting something, finds quotes, hard examples, uses past experience, case studies, numbers, facts, graphs, anything and everything except feelings. My communication doesn't extend to the verbal type - whatever that is called....speaking, verbal, talking, discussing feelings, emotions, teenage angst. I put stuff in “quotes” to extenuates something, I use the term “i.e.” without end, I use parenthesis (and contained thought) to help explain stuff. I grew up with an older brother and a younger sister…..when men where men and girls stinked.

My wife from me: talks, describes, accentuates, designs, explains, plans details & life via the verbal type. She grew up with 3 younger sisters.

Me from my wife: I communicate best with myself.

My work - My personal life is my work life and my work life is my personal life. My family is my work life and my work life is my family. Work = Personal ; Personal ≠ being able to separate my life from my work. From this fine theory = there's no reason to NOT blog.


Fulfillment Section - Here's where my mind goes......Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Outsourcing the entire F*ing thing to someone in China, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, *insert the newer lower labor cost country here*.

What I've realized - everyone says I need to communicate and maybe this is a starting point.

I am hoping to add a different vantage point & perspective on our life heard here.

I throw a great change up in the bottom of the 9th facing the prime of the line up with the bases loaded and no outs.

That's what I do – so watch out!

Bree Vandekamp

My momma raised me right - I can cook, clean and behave like a lady.


My family is relaxed, unpretentious and loves spending time together. I am good at cooking and entertaining but who I asked gave me the crazy entertainer gene?! Why do I feel that if I don't entertain and decorate in a manner that would make Southern Living jealous I've somehow fallen short? Somehow I think I should be Bree from Desperate Housewives, calm cool, collected, cooking in heels and pearls and make food I can't even pronounce! In the show her life isn't all that grand and being a giant ice queen who serves a good pie hasn't really gained her much happiness, but still.......


I have some weird internal drive to make everything perfect and make it all look effortless - but its not. It takes a toll on me mentally, it takes a toll on hubby's patience, but it does look good!! So how I wonder do I let go enough to enjoy the week before the event, but still make it special and feel good about it........


Cause there has to be a middle ground between this:




and this.........


what goes here.....?









Any ideas? I'm pretty far gone this year and hubby has been awesome helping me out with a theme and seating ideas. He is so fabulous - he even showed me how much he loved me by buying me a box of these! Let me tell you that as someone who never buys sweets for herself this guy had to dig deep into his memory to know I've loved these ever since my mom packed my lunches for me a looooong time ago - so when I'm having a bad day cause I've come up with a list of 11 appetizers that I think I have to make - I sit back and take a breath - cause its really all about family & the jelly rolls. Plus I know that we have a awesome simple theme for this year - and it will be perfect and special.


I guess even more important than the jelly rolls its all about this big crazy group that I couldn't live without!!!

Gateway Animal

"They" always say that there are different gateway drugs and eventually you end up on the side of the road begging for change - just because you wanted to try something once. What "they" never tell you is that there are gateway animals.

I received my first gateway animal almost 4? years ago from my kind hearted mother in law - my MIL. She has a huge heart for animals - a heart at one point in time that netted her 7 cats, 2 dogs and a rabbit - her husband - my FIL - is more pragmatic and when she found a sweet, tiny little black cat in her garage she naturally wanted to provide a home for her. However, my FIL had to draw a hard line - the animal or him... so she had to find another bleeding heart to adopt this kitten - she looked all around and all she found was me - at the time I was entering into my 6th? year of dating her son and she knew the kitten was small and cute and they could squeeze me and sucker me into adopting the kitten - it worked.

Now mind you - never in all my 25 years of life had I ever thought I wanted a animal but here I was the proud owner of a small black cat that was named Kelly Black Wampler McNabb - funny side not - I either cal her Kelly or her entire name - if you read something about a Kelly Black it won't even register with me that it is the same name. It helps cut down on monogramming since it would cost a arm and a leg to put that moniker on anything!

She is sassy, wears a rhinestone collar and doesn't take any crap from anyone and she was more than enough animal for me and I didn't need anything more - until I got engaged....... the same boy I'd been in love with for forever started talking about how cook Akitas were and wouldn't it be so awesome to have a big dog.. One thing you must know is that I am a action person - if there is something that I want to do and it is within my tiny, tippy toes reach - I'm going for it baby! My hubby - he is more of a philosopher and really evaluates options before making decisions........ So..... We got engaged in January and had a wedding planned in 4 months - that May - seriously I'm a fast mover when I see what I want! All these angles put the wheels of fate in motion

In March I went out with a friend for lunch and got margarita's - we are in Texas after all - and on the way home I saw a sign for Akita puppies for sale in the parking lot of a Kroger - I begged my friend to U-Turn and pull over and she did. What I saw weren't huge man killing dogs - what I saw was two adorable, fluffy 9 pound puppies - I immediately called my fiance and said leave work quick there are Akita's for sale on the side of the road and I wanna get one for you. He said alright I'll be there.

I played with the puppies and picked out the one I thought I liked and waited and waited, by then the margarita buzz wore off but the puppies were cute and i was there with my animal loving friend who wanted me to get one so she could play with them too...... Well level headed, rational fiance finally came and saw the puppies and since he's a bleeding heart animal lover too - guess what he said - we'll take not one but TWO!!! After all - how could we leave one behind?!

So there I was - with no buzz, decidedly less money in my bank account, in the middle of planning a wedding and the proud new owner of two cute cuddly, adorable Akita sisters. We each got to name one - I choose Isabella cause she looked like the dog from Beethoven, but once I got to know her better that was waaayyyy too much of a name for her so we shortened it to Bella. And hubby - he picked Bear - the most controversial name choice since she's a girl..... many a family and friend tried to rename her Beara - or Berry .... but it was a no go - Bear and Bella and Kelly Black Wampler McNabb.

My simple world of one had grown to two, and now 5! Gateway animals will get you every time!

And that dear friends is how our family grew, and grew and grew!!!