100th Hodgepodge

Hi everyone!  I hope everyone has had a great week!  Jordan and I had a lovely weekend and the work week has mercifully moved along quickly.

As hard as it is to realize, I'm sitting down this evening to write my 100th blog post.  Wow.  I can't believe we've had this little 'ole blog for almost 2 years now.  July 16, 2013 we started this blog with a hodgepodge of intentions.  At the time, I remember wondering how long it would take for me to run out of topics to share in this forum.  Or further, would I even have the time to put the effort into this blog?  I had decided early on to let the words flow freely without limitation to topics.  Our blog doesn't have to be about only "cooking", "photography", "health", "lake", "politics", "shopping", "technology", etc.  I wanted to talk about ALL of it!  As a result, I find that there is never a shortage of things to share and our blog is just that, a hodgepodge of our life.

So, for today's post, I think there would be nothing more fitting than to make this a random smash up of topics starting with a "behind the scenes" look at MarchSnow.

• How it works: I'm no tech wizard (that's for sure), so we use the free blog service called, Blogspot.  It's free up to a certain storage limit but I don't think I'm remotely close to the limit (even with all the pictures we share).  The set up is user friendly and it allows me to chose from a selection of "themes" and layouts for our page.  Maybe some day we will invest more in the look and vibe of our blog. For now though, the pre-determined settings are good enough for me.
  
• Who's reading: Blogspot provides what they call "stats".  They are real time, interactive charts that allow me to see cool stuff.  These stats can tell me how many blog hits we've had in a day, month, year, or all time.  It can tell what browsers (Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.) and operating systems (Windows, iPhones, Macs) are the most popular to view our blog.  Incidentally, most people view our blog in Safari on an iPhone.  
• It EVEN tells me what countries our blog is popular in.  In order of most popular to least popular, we've had hits in the following countries: United States, Malaysia, Turkey, Russia, France, Poland, Germany, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and China.  If you exclude hits in the US, we've had 450 foreign hits from followers all over the world.  Those are small numbers for an inconsequential blog, but guys, I think that it is amazing how technology can connect people!
  
• Putting it all together: I'm not going to lie, it takes a lot of work and effort to put together a single blog post.  Sometimes you get the best of me and I might spend 1.5 hours on a particular posting.  And then, sometimes (more often than not) you get the only 20 minutes I have to offer.  On average, it probably takes me 45 minutes to rap out a blog that has coherent thoughts and words that are spelled correctly.
• The time it takes to actually type a blog posting doesn't include the time and effort it takes to put together pictures.  I have found that it's easiest for me to snap pictures as I go through the week rather than try to collect pictures after the fact.  I honestly believe the saying that a picture is a 1000 words.  As such, I like to pack my posts with lots and lots of them (well, except for this wordy post). In order to maximize the number of pictures without using up all our blog storage, I like to use a picture collage app on my phone.  It's easy, fast, and I can upload the picture to the blog on the go.  With pictures collages, I can tell a much better story and include more people.
• I mentioned the "coherent thoughts" and my spelling earlier.  Jordan's my secret weapon in this department.  My loquacious husband proof-reads each post and helps me make sure I don't sound like a total goof.  Thank goodness for that!
  
• The perks: Originally, I thought maintaining a blog would be all work, but it turns out that it comes with some benefits!  
• One of the benefits is that the blog has become a small window into our past.  It's interesting to look back and read an old post and remember what we were doing together.  The human brain is powerful, but it is easy to forget the details of the countless blessings in our lives.  Jordan and I are normal people just like anyone else, so when we have rough days, the blog serves as a powerful reminder of all that we have to be thankful for.  The blog is a tangible illustration of how fast time is flying by so it serves as a reminder to treasure each moment.
• The blog has also allowed us to connect with family and friends!  We both have large families who live all over the place so the blog allows us to share pictures and experiences with them at their leisure.  

That's enough background about the blog.  If anyone has questions, I'm happy to share our blog experience!

Moving on to the random smash up of the weeks events... If you read my last post, you know that Texas has had a ton of rain in the last several weeks.  As far as I know, the lake level flooded as high as +4.35 feet!  That's above "full pool" level folks!  Today, the levels have dropped back down to around +3 feet so hopefully the water will go back to a normal level soon.

Top:  This picture was taken by a family member and shows how HIGH the water level has come.  According to this picture, you have to swim to get to the pool!  This kind of flooding can be serious.

Bottom Left: This is an example of the zillion Emergency Alerts Jordan and I kept receiving on our phones.  Every 30 minutes it seems we'd be alerted about a flood, tornado, or storm in our area.

Bottom Right: All this water means BAD news for mosquito season.  I found this hilarious (and almost true) meme on the Internet.  

Last weekend, the weather finally let up and Saturday was one of the first days of pretty sunshine.  It was a cool 77 degree evening and some friends invited Jordan and I to a Ranger's game!  Ah...yes please!

We got to see the our new pitcher, "Chi Chi" Gonzales pitch his first major league game.  It was awesome to see how supportive the crowd was.  You can read up on the amazing evening here.

Top: Rangers making a run for it!  We had AMAZING seats!  I barely had to use the zoom on my phone to snap some shots!

Bottom Left: Our friends, Paul and Lea Ann, brought their adorable baby, Kohl, to the game.  He was such a good natured baby that Jordan and I had fun holding him and goofing around.

Bottom Right: Six flags is right next to the ballpark so I had to snag this picture of the Superman ride.  

Little Kohl has the cutest facial expressions.  Here, he and Jordan are making hilarious faces.

Top:  Those eyebrows!

And then it was my turn to make faces with Kohl.

Love him!

All in all, it was a great evening for a baseball game.  The sun wasn't in our eyes, the temperature was mild and, of course, we won!  Yay for "Chi Chi's" first game!

Let's go Rangers!

Sunday evening we decided to capitalize on the mild temperatures.  Sweltering weather is just around the corner so you have to embrace it while it's nice.  Jordan managed to talk me into using our new tennis rackets that we bought at a garage sale a few weeks ago.  We actually had a good time hanging out on the court!

We brought Abby with us and she was a trooper.  I thought she might get nervous with the balls flying everywhere but she did great.  Bottom Left: little lady sitting on her blanket with her water bowl.

I was reminded (again) how bad I am at sportsing.  Jordan was patient and we tried not to make each other chase the balls too much.

Bottom Right: Abby was taking advantage of the shade.

Just as we were contemplating leaving, Jordan decided to dive into the chain-link fence and this happened:

Gross boys.  I had trouble looking at his nasty cut but as of today, it's healing up okay.

Other randomness... Lately, I've been on an earring kick.  I got some money for my birthday and found some earrings that I absolutely LOVE!

Top: Kendra Scott had a 70% off sale last week.  What what?!  I got these fantastic earrings for such a deal!

Bottom Left and Right: I've also been into Kate Spade lately.  Birthday money came in handy for these pink and jade earrings!

In addition to my jewelry addiction, my dish addiction is in full stride.  One of my friends at work gave me this "cazuela" or "olla de barrow" (clay pot) as a gift this week.  I think it has so much character plus it's versatile enough to go from the stove to the table top.

Our new dish was an inspiration for fajitas night!

I love this picture of Jordan and Abby.  She has such a quizzical expression.

Finally, I want to do a quick plug for the book Unbroken.  I've been reading, or rather listening to, books using an app that connects to our local library.  It's a fantastic app that has allowed me to listen to all sorts of great stories!  Among the books I've enjoyed is Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  This book is based on a true story and tells the tale of an Olympian who joins the Army during WWII and becomes a POW in Japan.  It's an emotional story, but is very inspiring and full of historical and shocking facts. 

And that's all I've got for you guys tonight!  Eesh...this post turned into a novel.  Hope you all are well!