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!!!