What a glorious Mother's Day!

Oh joy! I am the happiest woman alive! My Mother's Day is complete with an entire day of "ME TIME!" I am not cleaning, I am not doing laundry and I am not cooking! Instead my darling husband has removed our precious mop-top tot from our home and given me an entire morning and most of the afternoon to sit...in silence and I am eternally grateful.

So how do I spend my free time? Normally, it is not so "free". But today it is all about what I want to do. So after walking around the house for about an hour trying to decide what to do a light bulb went off! I will listen to MY MUSIC and clean the house!

Sounds strange. But to have no TV on and no phone and no child and no husband - to have nothing but joyful thoughts and MY MUSIC is the most delightful gift I have ever recieved. THANK YOU, KEVIN!

I hope you all had equally as glorious a day as I have had and Happy Mother's Day to you all!

Oh and what am I listening to????



Oh I am not ashamed!

And the big news is...

Oh I am addicted to new hair!!!!! By reading your comments I know that you are not surprised...but here it is!

Not the best photo - red eye galore and strange "cropping" on my part...but you get the idea!

Special Announcement

Oh there's big news at the Bredemeyer House. But we are not prepared to release an official statement.

Here is a teaser....



Can you guess???

Car Accident

Well, it happened. I was in a car accident today (sans Ben). I failed to yield totally before merging into traffic and the 87 year old man who was waiting his turn ahead of me hadn't gone like I had imagined he had. So I cruised into the back of him at a "merging into traffic" rate of speed. YIKES. The Hummer picked up his sweet little gold car and chewed on it for a while and then spit it back out.

*Sidebar: - Brittney, you had "The Beast" that ate gold Saturn's...I have the "Chrysler Cruncher"

Anywho - The man was so kind and so understanding that it was an accident and that I wasn't jacking around. He said he was fine, although given the fact that however "Driveable" his car may have been, he has no trunk and I popped off the rear view mirror INSIDE the car. To say he will be sore is an understatement.

My ticket was for "Failure to Control Speed" and the sweet little officer patted me on the back and was like, "Now, that's not a speeding ticket..." I think I would prefer a speeding ticket. We'll see when I find out what my fine is.

Special prayer request for the sweet little man I hit. I am not going to put his name in Blog World, so let's just call him Mr. D.R.

Update on Ron

Ron's surgery has been scheduled and he and Brenda will be leaving next week for MDA. I have no clue what the sugery entails, where all the tumor is connected and what his recovery will look like. I don't know if it is because I am some how in the dark or if some of this they will know more once the doctor's begin.

So if I may ask this one "small" favor of you...Would you please pray for the following:

Ron's health - A successful sugery with no complications
Brenda's peace - I can only imagine the anxiety of waiting for the sugery to be complete
A steady recovery - I ask for "steady" because sometimes even great things take time. So I pray for "steadiness" so that each day is better than the day before - even if it is slight.
Ron's patience - Being a man who is known has a "fixer" I am sure that is difficult to just lay and wait.
And for Kevin and Kim - no matter how old we get, there is something unnatural and scary about one of your parents being ill.

Thank you all and I will post more when I know more!

Random Thought Of The Week

I was raised by hippies. Not the uber-freakish, drug addled, rebelling youth of the Summer of Love, but the moderately experimental, trendy, free thinking youth of the very early 70s. My childhood memories are filled with Sunday morning "jam sessions" on the "hi-fi". And the music that came out of it would in some ways change my life. Not so much in the "Almost Famous" way, but enough that I would notice. To say my parents' taste in music was eclectic would be like calling Sybil "passionate". We would listen to everything from the Beatles to Janis to Air Supply to Lionel Ritchie (with and without his Commodores). Earth, Wind & Fire would make way for Christopher Cross who would then yield to Queen Babs herself, who around noon would switch somedays to Kris Kristoferson or even Bonnie Tyler. And the best? Well, my internet friends, that was Cat Stevens. My love for all things Cat is enough to make my husband and the majority of my friends moderately insane. But like the love between Elvis and his PB & Honey Sandwich, it is impossible to explain but its real and its deep.

So today I share with you my little gem that I found on YouTube today. This was Ben's favorite lullaby when I would rock him in the middle of the night when he was a baby. The boy knows good things when he hears them!

Enjoy!

The Other Bredemeyer "Boy"

I named my blog "Allison and the Boys" to discuss all things about the goings on with me and my men. What I have failed to mention thus far is our other "boy" in the house - Bagger. (I use "boy" in quotes because in cow terms he would be a steer and not a bull...but still a boy dog!)

Bagger's real name is Bred's Bird Bagging Boy. He is a full blooded Chocolate Lab with a fairly impressive hunting pedigree, thus the hopeful name. Over the years his registered name has turned more into a punch line like calling the one-eyed, three legged, deaf dog LUCKY! The sad irony is that the only thing Bagger will retrieve is a Happy Meal from off the kitchen counter.

Now before I begin this story I need to let you know a little bit about Bagger. Kevin bought him from a breeder near Waco and we got a steal on him because of two "major" flaws. I say "major" because they might be major to a breeder, show dog owner, or champion field dog owner but they are ridiculously minor to a pet owner.) We got Bagger for a discount because of a dime sized white spot on his chest and the fact that he was a giant. Much like the old cartoon about Lambert, the Sheepish Lion who stuck out from the other lambs like a towering bohemouth, Bagger towered over his siblings. I mean freakishly large! At 3 months he weighed over 30 lbs and didn't have an ounce of fat on him. At 6 months he weighed over 70 lbs. You get my point. He's more horse than dog. Our fabulous vet, Dr. A.B. (we'll call him this so if you google him looking for a vet my post won't show up) told us that Bagger's working weight would easily be 100 - 105 lbs. BIG FREAKING LAB!

So here we are today. Bagger is a BIG FREAKING LAB indeed. But you see, somewhere between the 2 dogs we had put down, the dozens of other dogs we "fostered" and having a baby, Bagger's diet has turned into weenies and canned food and a nightly ritual of no less than 2 rawhides...which WE have to hold for him while he chews! Needless to say, we have some minor health issues. The first to go was Bagger's thyroid. It doesn't work and I catch myself defending him like a mother of the fat kid..."He has GLANDULAR issues!" And now, most recently we have discovered that Bagger has the most embarrassing fat dog disease ever.....

TYPE 2 DIABETES! That's right folks...Bagger has the horrible disease that every trainer, nutritionist and doctor in the world warns you about. ("don't eat that...you'll end up with type 2 diabetes!") And what's the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes?!?!?! Diet and exercise!!!!!! And what really just chaps my hide is that Kowboy Gilliland Stephens never had Type 2 Diabetes! (May he rest in peace! - sorry Jenna!)

So Bagger's on a diet. Well, he'll start one on Monday because that's when you start a diet and as a life long, career dieter I sat him down and explained to him what he was about to go through...the embarassing weigh ins, the hunger pangs, the feeling of loss and hopelessness - oh, wait...did I say that outloud - tee hee.

We'll add a "Bagger Weighs In" column to keep you all posted on his progress. As much as I complain about the furry monster, I do love him.

Oh and the starting weight is....146. He weighed 118 in August of 2006 - YIKES!

This picture was taken almost a year ago so he's bigger than this, but I figure this picture showed that he was big enough!