this is an important day in a man's life...

These are the words my husband uttered to the warehouse men at Relics as he picked up his recliner late yesterday afternoon after work. This is a day Mitchell has long awaited since we have bought our house and started purchasing furniture for The Love Shack. My loving husband has asked for one thing. The one thing I never wanted in my house. A recliner.

Now, let me define my idea of a recliner. Covered in a material similar to carpet, in a redish brown color and about as large as a semi. La-Z Boy! I wasn't so excited about Mitchell's current needs. I made my wants quite clear to my hunny, no La-Z Boy recliner in our home, please.

After countless hours of searching, looking, talking and sitting we found the perfect non-recliner looking chair for the man in my life. Leather, espresso in color, rustic in design, medium to small nail heads. And yes it reclines.

Needless to say my husband is in love with a chair. Romulus likes the taste of the leather (at least he isn't barking aimlessly at it like he did the couch) and I... well I am happy because don't have a La-Z Boy in my house!

blood. sweat. tears.

The last year and half of my professional life in my current profession I have been working on a beast known as Datatel's Content Management System. I will spare you the hairy, technically details, most of which are boring and bear no importance to those who will never manage a website. Now, don't let me fool you. I do not do code, css, html or anything back end like that. I help manage, tell people what to do and make things pretty. I manage and market the brand that is Hardin-Simmons University! And in this case via the web.

And like I said this project has been over a year in the making and I have been a part of it since day one of my current position. There have been tears shed. Long hours worked and technically everything isn't perfect but the new and improved HSU website is up and running as of 25 hours and 12 minutes ago.

This is part 1 of the new Hardin-Simmons website - the graduate, undergraduate, financial aid, and other portions of the website. This website allows student to pay application fees online personalize the website, register for events and do so much more.


Look, explore, sign up! Whatever you do please enjoy: www.hsutx.edu

you ain't ever had my cornbread

A little bit of heaven, and a little bit of aw yeah...


Saturday, August 16th Team Etter (sans Romulus) will be enjoying the raw melodies of Dave Matthews Band. No one else could combine the emotion, strangely humorous dancing, fabulous vocals and wide array of instruments to make a sound like DMB.

We can't wait!

can i borrow your child?

These are the words I uttered yesterday to my co-worker as I realized every adult that I work with who does have a child had used them as an excuse to get out of an awkward lunch that I myself did not want to go to.

Did I mention my co-worker's son is incredibly cute, his favorite word is light and has not come to the office in a very long time? Tytus: I am due for a visit!

Back to my story. We are in the middle, when I say middle I mean middle of a two year-long project of implementing a completely new website. Go-live time is well... months ago, we have had several road bumps and our "helper" from Datatel (the company who we've purchased this lovely web software from) is on campus to help us with these kinks and to get us going. Now the polite thing is to take our guest to lunch. No one is volunteering, its 45 minutes until noon and everyone has mommy/daddy responsibilities.

Now I didn't mind taking Keith to lunch. I sort of like him in a completely professional-you are doing us a service, fixing our problems kind of way. Yet I didn't want to go to lunch with him by myself. And all of a sudden everyone's child has camp, practice, lunch, needs to be taken somewhere, etc.

My solution. I need a child to call my own. A child to shuttle somewhere. Because I don't think people are going to take me seriously when I tell them that Romulus has camp. Besides he isn't very portable.
Now this combination, portable and just plain cute!

Now don't worry, I am not going to walk off with a random baby. But my nieces and nephew, I might keep them forever on the other hand!

In the end Erin, my other childless co-worker and I hosted Keith to a local eatery, Harold's (thanks for lunch LH) filled our stomaches to their content and had an afternoon filled with content management website delight!

family time 101

This past weekend we along with the rest of the world we celebrated Father's day in in the metroplex with Mitchell's family. In addition to celebrating Docy and the wonderful things he has done for us and our family we celebrated birthdays, family reunions and eating. Lots of eating. Because that's what we do when we get together with our families, don't you? And I certainly don't feel guilty about that. Well, until I get home and to the gym on Monday.

But can I tell you what our favorite part of the weekend was? The three most precious individuals pictured below:

Maggie

Luke (or baby Uuke as Maggie would say)

Mollie Grace (with a side of chicken spaghetti)

I think Romulus had the best time though. He received a pluthera of attention and almost made a new friend out of SuSu's dog Macy. But if the three faces above aren't reason enough to drive halfway around the world for a weekend visit, I don't know what is.

the 3-2-5

I guess it's a big step. Becoming a full-fledged Abilenian. My husband officially has made the move to becoming a member of Abilene, Texas' elite society and obtaining a 325 cell phone number.

After living in Abilene for six fruitful years Mitchell got an 325 phone number this past Thursday. I guess 4 of those years he was a student, those don't technically count. For all of you who didn't know my loving husband wasn't just taking advantage of his parent's generosity. No. He didn't have an emotional attachment to his 817 phone number. Well, maybe he did. He was simply forced, and by forced I mean forced to get a 325 phone number. And I didn't do the enforcing thank you.

Now that he is a head band director and all he is needed by all and can't just give out a long distance number to those who need him. So he went to AT&T (formerly Cingular) received permission from his father, who had to call in to let him go from the 817, yes that actually had to go down, and Mitchell crossed over into what is now known as 325-adulthood.

Luckily enough for me its an easy number and sadly enough for his mother he now officially cut off from the 817. Sorry SuSu!

So, for all of you contemplating the big jump and playing with those butterfly's in your stomach you can do it. Become your own person. Get your own area code. Pay that bill. Oh, wait. I don't pay my cell phone bill. Gee, thanks HSU!

(You didn't think i would post Mitchell's cell phone number on here did you? Call me if you want his number or email us!)