my mosaic

this was so fun! here's the rules:

Answer the following 12 questions about yourself:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you?
12. Your Flickr name?
Type your answer to each of the above questions into Flickr’s search. Using only the images that appear on the first page, choose your favorite and copy and paste each of the URL’s into the Mosaic Maker (3 columns, 4 rows)… Enjoy!

mosiac maker is a cool website that lets you take photos from a flickr account or your computer and build them into a mosaic in a variety of sizes. you don't have to sign up to use the free service, just build your mosiac then save it to your computer.

here are my answers:

1. kelly
2. chips and salsa
3. tomball high school (i cheated on this one, went to page 2 because page 1 was mostly a kid's senior pictures)
4. black
5. wentworth miller (sigh)
6. coffee
7. italy
8. creme brulee
9. world traveler
10. friends
11. ecelectic
12. mcmullen (i cheated again. i don't have a flickr account, so i just used my last name. close enough, right?)

and the photo credits... you can click on the link to see the full photo, and if you're really curious, why it showed up in the search for my answer.
1. The "R.Kelly"- Song..., 2. homemade fresh tomato salsa & guacomole, 3. the Stage, 4. Aurorus Reflectus Colosseo, 5. 299496522_fffb454ec4_b, 6. coffee & the city, 7. Venice, 8. crème brûlée, 9. World Traveler, 10. Friends silhouetted, 11. Vienna - Hundertwasser Haus, 12. McMullen County Line Sign (McMullen County, Texas)

ok, now it's YOUR turn. and leave me a comment if you accept the challenge, so that i can come see them!

autumn

yep, this is totally my post from last october. but i was reminded of it after reading queen b's (one of the blogs i unashamedly stalk) post today. and i just want to add starbucks pumpkin spice lattes to this list. it's a major oversight that it didn't make it on the list last year. what was i thinking?! i guess it's a little early to be dreaming of autumn, since the texas weather didn't get the memo on the first day of the fall solstice. but, a girl can dream. anyway, without further ado... my love affair with autumn.

i. love. autumn.

i love...

• pumpkins and gourds
• leaves turning vibrant shades of amazing colors (well, not in texas, but i can still visualize this from when i lived up north)
• indian corn
• cooler weather -- those beautiful crisp days when the sun is shining brightly and the sky is so blue without a cloud in sight
• yummy soups and sandwiches
• thanksgiving day!
• cozy fireplaces (okay, once again, notsomuch in texas...)
• the scent of wood fires burning
• hay mazes
• warm, yummy cider
• fall festivals and craft shows
• the colors -- orange, yellow, gold, brown, red all melded together to create a kaleidoscope of fantastic proportions.

getting back to "normal"

today i had to finish (okay, start) preparing for jamie's shower. so i ran around the woodlands and tomball checking with la madeleine (i'm hosting it in their back room), gathering materials and a gift. things are starting to come back to normal. though, there were several places still closed because they have no power. and there are a lot of down power lines and trees, pretty much everywhere i went.

klein isd is still closed. most campuses reopen wednesday, except for those without power. well, hildebrandt is without power still. i've heard two conditions for those buildings (seeing as how my administration hasn't contacted me yet, i'm going on rumors). some say we will return 24 hours after power is restored and some say 48 hours after. but, they do have to have time to check the buildings and restore food service after power is up.

interesting thing i overheard at target today. as i'm shopping for jamie's gift, i overhear a woman on a cell phone. the cell phone is an important observation. she's also shopping at target -- there were items in her cart. as she's doing all this, she's complaining to the person on the other end of the line about how FEMA has been removing the POD locations. really? you're talking on your cell phone and shopping at target while whining how your free food, water, and ice is disappearing?! amazing. now, believe me, we (as in my family) were not prepared the way we should have been for hurricane ike. we lost everything in 2 refridgerators and 1.5 freezers. everything. we did have plenty of water and food (maybe not what we wanted to eat, but it was food). ice is a whole other story. we needed ice badly and it was very scarce. we rationed our driving so that we didn't need fuel as much as usual. there are ways to survive without FEMA. especially in our area of houston suburbs. and that's all i'm saying. it just takes some responsiblity and maturity. and if FEMA is your only chance of survival through this... accept it graciously and get on your feet as quickly as possible. and don't whine on your cell phone while shopping about the unfairness of the POD moving on.

hmmm...

as i catch up with my blog reading, i saw this post from last friday. i think it's still a fitting reminder.

we have power!!

so, after 131 hours without power -- we got it back today!! we are very excited.

we are also very, very grateful to our wonderful neighbors. after 3 full days of yard work on our part, we were still looking at the majority of 2 trees in the front yard and 3 trees in the back yard. then this morning... one of our neighbors showed up. about an hour later, another couple across the street showed up. we cleaned the front yard of ALL tree debris and got most of the backyard done. the tractor needs a new tube in the tire, though, so it's currently out of commission. the stuff left in the backyard needs to be pushed around with the tractor... so... we're done for the day.

i've uploaded more photos to the facebook album. check them out here!

oops...

so... i just realized that it is wednesday, not tuesday. so, that means... we've been without power for 103 hours. i thought my first estimate seemed not as long as it felt!!

and, i posted a few photos on facebook with captions. you can see them here, even if you don't have facebook. (click on the photos for the captions...)

another day...

i'm still alive despite the lack of electricity and running water. let me just say it's been 76 hours since we've had power (and will probably be longer). just throwing that out there. ;)

klein isd (and most other districts) have pushed their start date to monday. i found out that hildebrandt (my building) has sustained a good amount of damage. the covered walkway outside my side of the building is torn up. the roof caved in over one of the computer labs on the other side of the building from me. and the roof leaked pretty badly in the main hallway; so that carpet is probably ruined.

we spent the day yesterday working in the yard. we didn't get very far. there's a lot to clean and, of course, we had problems along the way. one of which was a malfunction of the generator. it blew up our directv receiver. yea.

i went to amanda's to take a shower and use her internet last night. and then i managed to talk her into going to la hacienda for dinner. there was a 20 minute wait! and then the kitchen closed at 8. it's so weird to have a curfew imposed by the counties. i believe 10 pm is the general rule. but one of the main underlying meaning behind many of the city and county officials' decisions -- let's not be like new orleans was in the hurricane katrina aftermath. so far, we've done well. hopefully, we've died down in the national news a bit as well.

today is more fun in the yard (i'm ready to go back to work instead of this! ha).

i'm off to town to get fuel and non-perishables at the store. pray for me. ha. this could be a whole other adventure to post when i get home. or whenever i get internet next...