Not so much an ambulance-chaser, but a fire-truck chaser.

This is the dirty-feet picture I told you about before-- the dust on our feet was a result of the spray-paint we used to paint the lockers. No picture of the finished lockers yet. I'll get that done sometime soon.

We've had quite a weekend! Friday night we had two friends over-- Kubby, who is in the worship band with Brad, and his girlfriend Karina. (Kubby's girlfriend, not Brad's. Sorry about that misplaced modifier.)

Anyway, we had them over for dinner, and inspired by T.G.I.Friday's commercial, we had chicken with sauce. The commercial features Friday's new entrees with which you choose a sauce to go with your meat. We served chicken skewers, grilled, with six sauce choices. I'm so sorry I didn't take a picture of out cute table-- I really wish I had! It was really fun. We had teriyaki, soy, peanut, barbecue, honey mustard, buffalo, and sweet-and-sour sauces. I served them in juice glasses with a spoon and had them all on a big plate. We also had grilled peppers and onions and pineapple on the side. Afterward we played our new favorite game, thanks to Allen and Sandi, called Crested Butte Craps. It's a fun dice game that I always lose. It was a really fun night! I think it was our first time having people over for dinner who aren't related.

Saturday we dropped off the Mercedes at Germain Arena to try to sell it. The Arena was having a huge used car sale, so we thought we'd leave the Mercedes in the parking lot to catch someone's eye. No luck so far. Afterward we went down to Naples for lunch at Shing Long, a pretty good Chinese place, and then went up to Ralph and Chris's for a brief visit. Ralph went over our taxes and found some errors (in our favor! yay!) and Chris had finished a few projects around the house we got to admire (curtain panels in three rooms! busy lady!). We then went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to get ourselves a new vacuum. We got a Roomba!!! It's just the neatest thing! We brought it home and charged it up, and late last night we got to try it out. You should have seen us-- you would think we just got a new pet! We watched it "learn" the floorplan, bumping into walls and furniture, getting stuck under chairs, etc. We let it run for about 10 minutes, just for fun. When we went to empty the dirt tray we were astounded! It picked up a ton of dust and dirt in those ten minutes! (Doesn't speak highly of my cleaning skills... but the floor looked pretty clean before!) We're going to run it again today to finish the job-- I'm thrilled with it!

We took naps in the afternoon on Saturday and then went down to the Arena to pick up the car. On the way home we spotted a huge fire across the highway. Being the naturally curious people we are, we decided to hunt for it. We ended up in a little neighborhood in San Carlos Park, where there was a brush fire! We parked our car a block away and then walked over to the street where there were about 25 people gathered, watching the fire. Behind the row of houses was a large forest area, and since it has been terribly dry here, the brush fire risk has been high. They don't know what caused the fire, but it was eating up trees like no tomorrow. These trees must have been 50 feet high old pines and it took no time to consume them. Firefighters were up on houses' roofs with garden hoses, wetting down the yards and roofs, and extinguishing embers as they fell on to houses. The fire kept getting closer to the houses until it was one row of trees away from backyards-- it was really something to behold. After a while the firefighters asked us to move down the street. While we were walking down there we passed by a woman with her large dog--looked like a boxer-doberman mix. Brad walked behind her uneventfully, but as I walked in front of her the dog lunged at me and barked a LOT! And then I reacted. Do you ever have reactions that just make you wonder what's going on with you? I shrieked and burst into tears and ran to bury my head in Brad's chest. It was so weird, and not a little embarrassing. I shook for a while after-- keep in mind the dog never touched me, and I'm not usually freaked like that. So weird. I think that the weight of everything going on in my life came out right then-- the sorrow of Uncle Kenny's illness, the busy-ness of working a lot, relational issues with mean people in our small group (which we're leaving)... afterward I just felt really fragile. Damn dog.

They got the fire mostly contained, so we decided to leave. We went to get a movie and a pizza to veg for the night. At Blockbuster my dearest husband told me to get whatever I wanted to, so I picked up a movie that had won awards and looked calm, soothing, and funny. Knowing he might cringe at the title, I sheepishly asked if it was ok, and he agreed to it. I have to say that I think I have a new favorite movie scene. The movie was "Real Women Have Curves", about a hispanic family whose mother and two daughters work in a dressmaking shop as an underpaid supplier for Bloomingdales. The youngest daughter is repeatedly told she is fat, she won't find a husband, etc. She gets sick and tired of it and during one really hot day when she is steaming dresses, she just strips down to her underwear. Don't get me wrong-- it's not a porno kind of scene-- it's a wonderful, liberating, women-affirming moment. She cranks up the radio and is steaming the dresses and just dancing with her fun self. The other women in the little factory look at her disdainfully, and then begin to envy her freedom. One skinny woman declares herself a fat cow, to which all the fat women roll their eyes and begin comparing stretch marks and taking off their hot clothes. I'm not doing the scene justice, but it is just something to behold. There's something inspiring to me about women being fine with who they are, eclectic, full of personality, and not a cookie-cutter from a magazine. More on that some other day. All in all, the movie was mildly entertaining to Brad (I think) and thoroughly therapeutic for me. A good night. (Except for the Papa Johns-- ugh in the tummy.)

Ok- Brad just got some replies on a car he's pursuing. I need to go check that out.

Love to you all. Thanks for reading.

Good deed for the day.

I've been requested to update my blog more frequently. (What, Mom, like monthly isn't good enough for you? :) ) So my goal is once a week, which is what I promised in the beginning.

I did my good deed for the day. This morning on my commute I came across... a cow on the side of the road. Now this isn't terribly exciting, as there are plots of land everywhere with a few cows on them. Having cows on your land gives you a tax break in Florida, so cows are no big thing. However, usually there is a fence between said cows and the cars. This morning, no fence. So I was one of the helpful people who alerted the authorities before we had ground beef. (Get it? The car would knock the cow to the GROUND, creating GROUND BEEF? Sorry.)

I felt a little funny calling 911 on a steer, but hey, if it was coming at my car, I'd want to know. Plus, I wasn't going anywhere as it takes me at least 25 minutes to go 4 miles every morning. Now if only I could time it right so that I open my car door just as the sneaky motorcyclist who drives down the middle goes by... that would make my morning much more exciting that just cows.

My latest obsession with any free time is reading craft and food blogs. The craft ones inspire me to scratch my creative itch (I promise it's not contagious) and the food blogs inspire me to make beautiful meals. I'm working hard on weight watchers so the food blogs inspire me to make pretty and creative food, even if it has to be lower in fat. Here are two that I like:

Not Martha
Angry Chicken (She has monthly apron-making activities-- she picks a theme for the month and people make aprons and send in pictures. Check out Tie One On in the left margin to see the February man-aprons.)

And I took the suggestion of my former roommate Susan who got me into foreign films. I watched Apres Vous, a French movie about a man who saves a guy from killing himself, and then tries to turn the guy's life around for him. Hilarity ensues, partly because it's all in French. I felt quite cultured.

And Brad and I have taken to playing Rummikub often. We got in a quick game last night between American Idol and bedtime. It's more fun than watching the evening bad news.

Happy Wednesday.

Long time no talk to.

It has been far too long again. If you are a friend of mine, you know that I am a terrible correspondent. I apologize yet again for my bad habit. Some people are good at writing letters, like my grandmother. Grandmother has written me a letter weekly, with comics cut out from the funny papers, for my entire 29 and 5/12 years. I, on the other hand, can't keep current to save my life. So here's the latest from the Bresslers. Read it carefully, as it might be all you get for a few months.

Work. I am still enjoying my job very much. I feel necessary and that I am helping out the company-- it is so nice to feel like my work matters, and it matters now! Teaching junior highers, yeah, it will make a difference, and maybe when they're 25 they'll remember the Pythagorean Theorem and appreciate my work. But what I do propels our company forward quickly-- more houses can be processed because I'm here. That feels great to me. And Glenn tells me he appreciates what I do-- that's really nice. The one down side is the hours. Forty hours of work, not including lunches, plus 45 minutes of commute each way means that I am away from the house for 10.5 hours a day. That's rough on me, and I am feeling the weight of that. That and the taxes junk-- that's been eating my free time, too, but just being at work alllllll day and then driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 45 minutes... I think I need some books on tape.

I remember a few years ago when I lived in Baltimore. I borrowed my grandparents' condo in Pinehurst, NC, for a few days of my spring break, just to get away from Balty. On the long drive down I listened to the funniest thing I could find at the library to borrow-- something by Paul Reiser about parenthood. I looked like a lunatic driving down the road laughing hysterically, and if you know how I laugh, you know that my eyes become little slits and I have trouble seeing... not such a good thing when driving. So I was driving down the road, laughing heartily, one hand on the wheel, the other hand, thumb and forefinger, pushing my cheeks out of my eyes. Pretty picture. Then, on the way home, I listened to the only other thing I could find at the library-- Tuesdays with Morrie. And I cried my way home. If anyone passed me both times they might think I had emotional issues...

So work has been good. Brad's job is going well. He had one client full time in November through January, and has been taking classes for much of February and March. He met with two more prospective clients last week and they both signed him on, hooray. I've enjoyed having him home because it has lightened my load of housework, and he is available to have lunch with me a tad more often :).

We've been keeping busy with house things-- we just finished the lockers two weeks ago. We bought a set of lockers at a demolition sale in Illinois before we moved. They are three full-sized, old, big, unwieldy, rusty, ding-ed lockers that for some reason looked like a perfectly good storage solution for media. So we bought them at a great price and moved them down here with the intent to refinish them. We spent a few weekends-- felt like forever!-- sanding them and painting them, and they're finally in our living room. I know-- lockers in the living room? But it fits my style perfectly. I like a traditional, cozy look with one curveball thrown in for interest. The curveball in the living room is named, "lockers." The curveball in the kitchen is named, "vintage kitchen table." The curveball in our bedroom is our headboard made from an old 5-panel door (yet to be painted... a project for another day.) I have a picture of our feet after the painting-- we used spray paint (never again) and it put off an amazing amount of black dust. We were sneezing paint dust for quite a while afterward. Can't be good for us...

We've taken a few minutes off of house projects here and there to explore the area. A few weekends ago we ventured north to the Lee County Fair. Oh, the delight! How long has it been since we've been to a fair, we wondered. We went on a Saturday night and got there just as folks were lining up for the Joe Diffie concert. We passed on the concert but walked around the fair for a while. We went in the house-made-from-a-huge-log and admired the handiwork therein, we saw many rides and were tempted by the men yelling, "Hey there! Win a doll for the lady!" (ok, not really tempted) to try our hand at throwing the ball into the rigged basket, we saw numerous fair-food stands... and then we came upon the petting zoo. Spoilsport Kath had seen something on 20/20 or the like which told of children dying from horrible diseases they picked up at petting zoos, so we both kept our hands in our pockets. We did admire many an animal-- lots of baby goats, sheep, pigs, etc, some horses, I think a ram of some kind, a tiny horse that looked thoroughly embarrassed to be stared at, and bunnies and chicks. Just as we were leaving the petting zoo, the pig races began next tent over. We cheered for lucky number 4, but he didn't get the Oreo prize. As we walked away we were drawn by an intriguing sign over a tent-- "Come See Bob, the Giant Pig!" They say fools and their money are soon parted, but boy, Bob was worth the $0.75 we each paid to get a look. He was gigantic. Twelve hundred pounds. He was just big everywhere. Just a very big pig. He was laying on his side, looking forlorn and maybe a bit ill...? It looked to me that he had a tumor on his end... but anatomical genius Brad informed me that he was sure Bob was a boy pig, and that "growth" had a twin. Oops.

We finished walking the loop around the fairground and decided after all we had seen that we were no longer hungry for fair-food. Brad mumbled something about cleanliness and maybe the board of health, so we went out for Gatsby's pizza instead.

Two weeks ago we took a vacation day on a Sunday (heathens) and spent the day on Marco Island. I'd heard of Marco but never been, and Brad had only been on business once. We bought beach chairs and an umbrella and headed down south, about an hour. When we arrived we drove around for a while and noticed quite a few plots of land. Marco is shaped like a whole bunch of capital E's-- every pair of streets has a waterway in between instead of an alley. Virtually every house has it's own dock and waterfront-- very nice if you're into boating. We're not so much the boaters yet, but we appreciate beachfront. So as we drove and noticed all the vacant lots, we mused about buying a quarter-acre and saving up to build on it in ten years. We came upon a beautiful piece of property that backed up to the Gulf of Mexico-- we'd have our own 75 feet of beach!!! We figured that quarter acre lots in Lehigh are about $50 grand, in Bonita are about $100 grand, in Naples are about $150 grand, so on Marco maybe they're $250,000? I called the number on the For Sale sign... we were only off by one power of ten. Seriously-- a vacant quarter acre is going for $2,500,000. After we picked our jaws up off the floor, we found a pizza place, had a quick bite, parked illegally at the Radisson hotel, then sat on the beach for a while. It was a wonderful vacation, much needed and much appreciated. We've decided that March is absolute heaven down here. November through February are nothing to complain about at all, but March is just paradise. We also decided that we need to set aside one weekend per month to vacation and explore-- St. Petersburg, Tampa, West Palm Beach, Orlando, the Keys and the Everglades are all day- or weekend-long trips. We must take advantage of this amazing place! (Before nasty hot summer comes and I get grumpy from the heat and stay inside.)

Mom came to visit for a week and we enjoyed spending time with her. She helped us plan what to put in the part of our yard by the front door that is a marshland. We need a tree, or a bush, or something besides sunken wet moldy grass. We had a ball driving around looking at other people's landscaping, and also going to a really nice nursery to look at trees. Dang things are $100 each and I can't keep anything alive, so we might wait until there are a few empty spaces on our plates before we tackle landscaping. I took off half of Wednesday afternoon to explore Pine Island with Mom-- we found a fantastic seafood place off the beaten path where I had my first experience with coconut cream pie-- amazing-- and we found some fun art galleries to go into. It was really nice to spend face-to-face time with Mom. It's amazing how much I miss her sometimes.

On a sad note, we learned last week that my Uncle Kenny (huge, invincible Uncle Kenny) has advanced cancer. It was found during a routine checkup and it's not looking so good. Please pray for a miracle, and that he will somehow turn to Jesus in this time. It might be only a few more days... pray for him and for our whole family. It has been really hard to handle.

I hope that all is well with you and yours. As we all do when faced with mortality, I have grown keenly aware of the connections my heart has with yours. Let us all take the moment to say the unsaid thing, do the thing we hesitate to do, love instead of judge. Emerson said, "You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."

Love to you, and I mean it.

Kath