Z is for Zero

Zero...as in zero more of these blogs too write. I'll be writing my "reflections" blog to post on May 3, but I have to tell you I'm happy to have the month be over. I don't like writing by the alphabet. I like to be spontaneous in my blog topics and have found constricted with this alphabet thing. I miss doing my Friday Fragments and only did the Wednesday Hodgepodge once in the month. So I'll be getting back to my randomness beginning May 1.

I'm sure everyone will be happy with that.

Y is for Yo-Yo

I remember as a kid being fascinated by yo-yos. A talented person could make it do tricks. I tried and tried but I could barely make it go up and done a couple of times. Forget about tricks. I would wrap the string around and wham it wouldn't even stay wrapped.

You know life can be like a yo-yo. It can feel like we have a string attached to us and as soon as we get going, the string yanks us back to the place we were getting away from. How do we stop that from happening? Well we can sort of do like I did when I couldn't make the yo-yo work when younger. Don't wrap the string so tightly around us, don't let someone have control over us, don't accept that we don't have control.

You can break the yo-yo cycle.

X is for X Words

I knew this was going to be the hardest entry to write so I've thought about it since I signed up. I decided to look up words that start with X and figure it out from there. Did you know there is a website that lists unusual words that start with each letter of the alphabet? How helpful is that.

I found out that I'm neither xanthochroic or xanthocomic (yellow skinned or yellow haired). How often you figure I'll pull these words out again?

How about a xeme? It is a bird.

I do have xenodocheionology which is a love of hotels. Well the love is of nice hotels, not just any kind of hotel.

Oklahoma suffers from xeransis or drying up. Yes a few years of drought will make us look like the Dust Bowl.

Do you know anyone who does xyloglyphy? It is wood-carving.

And I certainly don't want to run into anyone has carries a xyster. It is a surgeon's instrument for scraping bones. Yikes that is scary.

So there you go...a little walk down the X section of the dictionary. Feel free to use any of these words in Words for Friends. You can always use a little boost when you get the X.

W is for Whitney

How could I do a whole alphabet and not do W for Whitney. I think she would be very disappointed if I didn't.

So here's my brag post about my daughter. I love her too pieces. She is the light of my life. She makes me so proud to be her mother. The last two years at college she has grown up so much and become an adult. Wow amazing how that happens isn't it?

Her greatest strength is her generosity. She gives so much of herself unselfishly. She is a giver people. If I were her age, I'd want to be her friend.

She does have only child syndrome with independence, self-entertainment and leadership.

She'll be home for the summer and working on an internship with a local marketing firm while taking one course at a community college. I'm sure we will spend lots of quality time in the kitchen making healthy food.

V is for Very

Very. That's a word that we use often to describe something. Very pretty. Very nice. Very sad.

I'm VERY sorry about yesterday's umbrella post. I didn't have my U post written and then I went to a conference for a couple of days and wham, it was time for the U post. Yikes. And I couldn't figure out how to add anything to it since I was using my ipad.

I'm VERY happy that it has been raining this month. The water levels are up in the lake that supplies are city with water. Maybe if it keeps raining we will get back to normal.

I'm VERY excited that the A-Z challenge is coming to a close. This last week is full of hard letters.

U is for Umbrella

As we continue to get rain and make up for our drought, I often wonder how umbrellas were invented. I get the whole something over your head, but where did the idea for pushing up a stick to make some fabric come out.

Of course this is just one of the many things I wonder how it was made or invented. What makes you go hmmm?

T is for Tracy!

Lucky me, T is my letter. So today's post is all about me.

I was born in Moline, Illinois. That's part of the Quad Cities, where the Mississippi River goes East-West not North-South. I moved around quite a bit as a child and spent time in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Watertown, Wisconsin; Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin; Orlando, Florida and Houston, Texas. The Wisconsin years were by far the best or maybe I just remember them that way because I was young. Anyway I moved to Oklahoma to go to college and have never left.

I've been married for almost 25 years to Dan who I met in college. We have one daughter, Whitney, who is at college herself. Not too far away, but far away enough that she has her own life. Which is probably the best of both worlds.

I work for the university I graduated from (not once but twice...guess I liked school that much) with weather people. So I'm always asked about the weather. That comes in handy some days like last week when we had severe weather and I could tell from the people here where they were worried about. I manage a large research unit's financial/administrative side which I've been doing for 11 years. Since the university is the only place I've ever worked, I'll be able to retire in about 6 years. WOOHOO!

One of my favorite things to do is to go to wine tastings because you get into some pretty interesting conversations. I like to cook and have started to experiment with trying new foods. Some things I like and some things I don't but at least I'm trying.

So there's just a bit about me.