Early March

March has started off very well all around for both of us. We've received lots of rain, so our yard is once again green with weeds. I'm in the middle of adding new plants to the front yard right in front of the foundation. My boss gave me a $25 gift card for doing so well with one of our bigger customers at the end of February, so I decided to use it towards gardening supplies at Home Depot. I won another $25 gift card today for a contest at work. Hopefully I can finish it up this weekend now!

My youngest brother turns 17 tomorrow. Next year I'm want to do something really cool for his birthday. On my 18th birthday I got the Beatles CD I wanted and $60. Shouldn't be too hard to beat that!!

Marshall is officially on spring break. He's going to be doing his computer programmer work Friday and the weekend, then tackle his car (Natasha) during the week. I'm praying like a nun that Natasha is functional again by next week. I still have my Christmas decorations up because I can't get to the attic to bring down the containers everything goes in. Plus, it would be really nice after 3 months to no longer be a 1 car family.

This Sunday morning we have a tentative date to go play disk golf together. I've never done it, but I think it would be good exercise. May turn into our new favorite outdoors activity to do together.

My Girl Scouts event on February 25th was a huge success. We had 400 scouts and adults participate, and everything went so well. This upcoming year I've volunteered to help organize fundraising events for the Girl Scouts, and I already have a few in mind. :)

I started watching a new series (new to me at least) on Netflix from Showtime called The Tudors. I like historical based dramas, and although they don't have the history exactly correct, it's still interesting. The actors do a pretty good job as well. I'm also watching a 6 part documentary on the UK Monarchy from the Romans to present day.

Marshall's parents are planning on riding their motorcycles up to Austin Easter weekend, and we're looking forward to spending time with them. April looks to be a busy month for Marshall with lots of foundry conferences and another visit to Lufkin Industries. No official word yet on his summer internship, but it appears that the powers that be are unfortunately focusing more on the short term than the long term, and just haven't put much effort into making decisions about their summer internship program yet. We're still optimistic an opportunity will pull through for us.

Marshall's part-time job is going amazingly well. He can work up to 30 hours per week, which he's been reaching quite easily. This is a wonderful opportunity for him and our family. I'm really glad he has this positive purpose to focus on since he is half way through his college career, at a time when it is so easy to get distracted and lose sight of the finish line. We talked about this this morning, and both feel very blessed for this opportunity.

My niece/nephew Thiele will become gender specific on March 21st, so less than 2 weeks away now. My brother returned safely home yesterday from his 10 week deployment. Hurray!

New Opportunity

By the end of January, Marshall's management professor Chris emailed his class and other audiences a part-time computer programming internship opportunity at the successful small business he manages. The paid internship would be March 1 to May 31st with 20-25 hours per week. Chad is their sole computer programmer and has a mounting pile of to-do projects, thus, the need for some part-time help. 

Marshall decided that with his computer programming background, he would apply. The offer included that they would be flexible around students' school schedules. Why not take a stab in the dark? A few days after submission, Chris contacted him for more details. Shortly thereafter, Marshall had a great phone interview with Chad. He had a face-to-face interview on February 10th, along with other candidates. Sunday night he received the acceptance confirmation in an email from Chad, and they would like him to start the following Friday the 17th, which was nearly 2 weeks early! 

Turns out Marshall was the only candidate they selected although they would have hired more if they would have been competent in computer programming; turns out they were not. Marshall had a successful first day and got along splendidly with Chad and everyone else he was introduced to. He's been set up with all the information he needs to begin telecommuting from home or school as well. 

I'm having to do some adjustments of my own because with his homework, torn apart car in the garage, and now new job, his responsibilities will mean less time for me. I really do need a hobby to keep me occupied and entertained while he is busy. I think it also may be necessary for us to designate a particular evening during the weekend to be just for us together so that we remember that we comply with our crazy schedules for our ultimate goals together. 

I'm very proud of him, and I know he's going to do fantastic at his new job!

Fondue Fever

Sunday the 12th was my February Fondue Fiesta that I was hosting at my house for my girlfriends from work and Meetup. Of the 9 ladies who RSVP'd, 2 showed up on time, and 1 had told me she was coming late because she had a previous commitment that was going to interfere. 2 other girls later told me about their unforeseen circumstances on their absence, and I understood, moreover, I really appreciated them letting me know that they just didn't blow me off.

I prepared enough fondue for 12 people although I only cooked up enough for us 4 who got to enjoy it. I'm able to use all the left overs, but now I have 4 milk chocolate bars in my baking cabinet that I need to make sure I do not tap in to out of boredom or cravings.

I was envisioning a vibrant party with lots of laughter, conversation, delicious food and wine. I was sad it didn't turn out that way even though my three guests all said they had a good time. I think I'm going to take a break from party planning for a while.

Tough Love

Do you think you are strong? How strong are you? Do you curl fourth graders at the gym amongst the squeals of laughter? Do you crush the extended hand when you shake it? Can you push a car by yourself?

How strong are you emotionally? My friends are as strong as the Empire State Building is tall. Who am I hanging out with you wonder. These ladies see tomorrow as both a blessing and a curse yet they progress towards their goal of taking home a baby from the hospital. My friends have suffered through the losses of their unborn children. Their pregnancy is confirmed, and sometimes as soon as that same day they find out their hope has fallen to the ground like a cannon ball. 

I wish there was a way for us to see the rush of hormones and chemicals that flood the body when a woman finds out she's pregnant. The excitement of success for a long awaited goal having been reached would just have to evident throughout her body. Her heart becomes more tender; her ego fades to the background; and she embodies her vision of what it means to be maternal. She no longer holds herself on a pedestal but instead her growing womb encompasses her number one. A pregnant woman starts planning immediately on how to face her fears and how to best maximize her joy. I'm not sure a man can relate to such an organic change like a woman can in this situation. 

Then, through no fault of her own consciousness, she's delivered a telegram somehow, some way that her dream has just been popped. Her body isn't producing the right balance of hormones. How was she suppose to know?! Now she has to muddle through the despair that follows such sorrowful news. The doctors do not know why she continues to have miscarriages. Why is her body broken while others' are baby-making machines?! What did she get dealt this deck of cards?! She continues to research anything and everything that can possibly give her insight into the mysterious cause of a miscarriage. She wants to understand what her doctor is talking about, and have an engaging conversation with him about what she needs to do going forward. 

Going forward. These women do not know how to shrivel up and quit. No. They are strong because they do everything in their power to achieve their dream of holding their child one day. Their world is a blur of numbers that give meaning to their journey. They mourn, and they make a special place in their heart for the life they created and envisioned cuddling with one day. They acknowledge that they need time to heal, and do so in their own way. Their journey comes with pent-up excitement for a positive and realistic unpleasant news with a sign of a cramp. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. My friends willing go through this cycle because they are strong. 

You may have strong friends too, and you never knew the source of their strength. I am not as strong as my friends, but should I need to be, I know I have them close by. 

I'm saddened too because I won't get to see the pictures that you post or the videos that you share. Now I won't have those adorable cheeks to want to pinch. I won't witness the proud smile you always wear while holding your baby. One day though, I will awe at your child in the pictures. One day I will laugh at your baby's uncanny sense of timing while being caught on camera. Not only will I tenderly nip at those cheeks, but I'll feel those little fingers wrap around one of mine. One day you'll get to introduce the world to your child, and it will be the moment that is keeping you strong today.

Doggy Trivia Party

 Last night I hosted a meetup for 7 girls at my house. I put together this lovely snack spread:
*Puppy chow (recipe from Pinterest)
*Dog themed rice crispy treats
*Black bean-corn salsa with Tostitos Scoops chips
*Pumpkin whip (recipe from Pinterest) with cinnamon Teddy Grahams
*Veggie tray (not pictured)
*Cranberry-Apple-Pomegranite Sprite mixed drink

I had met three of the six girls who came over at previous meetups. Incase anyone isn't familiar with meetup.com, it's a website where one can join or create a social group with a specific interest. The group that I'm a part of is called Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and it's for ladies in Austin who are looking to meet new girlfriends. Most of us are transplants to this great city, are out of college, and work full time. Our group does all the work for you by bringing women who are looking for friends, looking to bond with others, and go have fun.

I joined this group back in July after visiting my best friend in North Carolina. She's a Marine wife and an elementary school teacher. Her friends are all teachers and Marine wives too. They are always meeting up to go to the gym, go out to dinner, have parties together, send over husbands to do husbands' work while one is deployed, that sort of thing. I had been feeling very lonely in Austin because I didn't know how to find the social circles to meet other girls who were also looking to make friends. Somehow I came across meetup.com when I came home from vacation, and my social life took off!

Back on track now, everyone chatted and shared about themselves. Turns out three of the girls were from Wisconsin. We shared stories about our current dogs or what dogs we had growing up. We started the trivia game, which I did in a powerpoint presentation on my laptop. The winner got a bottle of wine with a labrador on it.

Trivia ended at 10pm, and we went to Midnight Rodeo, a club about 15 minutes away. Some girls had been there a long time ago, but we were all really curious to see what it was about. So, we were a group of 7 girls with no guys around us; if that doesn't scream, "We're here to dance!" I don' know what does. We were disappointed they did not have a mechanical bull. The country music was pretty good, and they threw in about three rap songs like Gold Digger and such about once a hour.

They had one song where it was Ladies' Choice. Ladies could choose any guy they wanted to dance with and the guy couldn't so no. I asked one of the single girls with us who she wanted, and she pointed to a tall guy with a baseball cap. I took her by the arm, went over to the guy and said, "Hi, meet Kristy. She wants to dance with you, and you can't say no." Then I left to go back to the rest of the girls, hehehehe. Turns out his name was Daniel, and he couldn't dance, which is why he was standing towards the back. It was fun to watch them out there. I definitely would do anything to convince Marshall to learn to country dance while wearing his cowboy hat. *swoon

PS. With Marshall's car still torn apart in the garage, we can't move it to pull down the ladder to the attic. Thus, we STILL have our Christmas decorations up.

Cats

I haven't updated on our furry babies in a while, so I thought I would do so this morning because I saw Misti on our guest bed, posing like she deserves the whole thing to herself. 

Misti is very much like a teenage daughter most of the time. She loves her daddy, and she'll only hang out with her mom when it suits her. This is why I love teasing her with a shoe lace or string because she instantly reverts to being a cat again. She absolutely adores Marshall. When I wake up on the weekends, she'll sneak into our room and cuddle up in my tossed blankets on my side of the bed. When I peek back in on her, she's sleeping contently as if this is how life should be--Daddy and Misti-gurl snoozing together. It's so funny to watcher to trot after Marshall as he goes to another room or down the hall. 

Misti has also twisted daddy's arm into letting her go outside in the back yard when it is nice out. 

Here is our orange boy Santa Ana.

Santa Ana (aka Orange Boy, Brother, Family Cat) is such a sweetheart. Every morning I have a WW smoothie, and I drink it while relaxing on the couch. He follows me to the couch, hops in my lap, and readies himself for pets. This is our routine every morning. He also gets good-night pets where we cuddle for a few minutes before I fall asleep. Marshall and I being together, whether it's us lying in bed talking to each other or us on the couch watching a show, is an absolute magnet for Santa Ana. He take the opportunity for 4 hands to pet him instead of the normal 2. This cat also plays fetch. His favorite activity is having us throw toy mice, and he runs after it, then brings it back to us to repeat. He jumps really high too. I wish I could get him on video of him being an acrobat! 

This is our Maggie, the kitten we took in from the streets a week before Christmas in 2010. 

Maggie is a vocal sweetie-pie. She enjoys sitting on the dining room table, where she knows she isn't suppose to be, and looking out the window. She instigates play-time with her big brother, and they are frequently spotted racing through the house. Her favorite room is the bathroom. She loves playing Shower Curtain Monster, which is a game where she bats our our hand making movements with the shower curtain. Poor Maggie is not a graceful cat at all. She's so awkwardly put together with her small head, square body, and thin tail. It looks like she is smiling when she's in daddy's lap while he's using the computer because she's so content. Maggie recently somehow made it into the yard of the neighbor behind us. It was a fiasco trying to get her to come back, but Marshall did it. Cats have not been outside since. 

These are our Reeske fur babies. Life wouldn't be as interesting without them. 

Foundation in Foundry

Marshall went to a conference in Houston last night, and the topic was about how the oil and gas industry's new method of fracking is affecting the foundry industry. As a refresher, Marshall is majoring in Industrial Technology--Manufacturing Technology at Texas State University, and will graduate in May 2014. Last semester he took a foundry course and fell in love with it. He's less interested in bring the guy who pours the molten metal into sand molds, and more ambitious in becoming an engineer in the foundry industry. Back on track now, the speaker basically spoke about how fracking works and that is requires a lot of sand. The oil companies are buying and using more than all the sand that the foundry industry around the entire world uses in a given year. With the demand for sand on the rise, so are the costs, which are also affecting foundries. Very interesting for business leaders, and informative for people like my husband who want to know more about the industry.

The real reason Marshall went was to rub elbows with the owners, managers and other representatives of foundry companies here in Texas. He met up with this Lufkin contact Ray, who gave him a tour of their foundry facility back in December. Ray was with two other Lufkin reps, one of whom Marshall said looked to be in upper management. Marshall asked him what would his chances be of gaining employment with Lufkin after college and going to an overseas location (such as Canada or Argentina). Apparently the guy's response was "pretty good," because most Americans don't want to move out of the country, and the people that they do want to go overseas would fill management positions. This is good news for us because we'd consider going to Canada or Argentina. They have a Romania facility...um, not so much.

Marshall so was told some anecdotes about how people in upper management in the foundry business are literally dying off. It's becoming more and more common for someone in their late 20s or 30s being a general manager or chief of operations of a foundry. Wow! I don't think Marshall could handle the stress of such a position, but he'd be an excellent engineer or engineering manager, which would be a huge asset to the GM. What does this all boil down to for us? First, it seems that the people Marshall has spoken with at these types of conferences are all very patient. They are completely fine with keeping in touch with him and getting together again when he graduates (2.5 years away). This is amazing in my eyes. In addition to this, we are both feeling more confident that Marshall could go into contract with a company probably the fall of 2013 and start working for them after graduating the following May.

I know my husband will be very successful at whatever he puts his heart into, and I believe the foundry industry is at a point where they would snatch him up in a heartbeat. Hopefully he'll enjoy it and become a leader, creating new processes, even inventing new tools (Marshall loves to invent things) that would be applicable to foundry work. I'm very content right now with this door we may choose to enter one day.