What the Junk?

My mother and I share a lot of talents.

We are both multitaskers.

We both speak our minds.

We are pretty good gift-givers.

The list could go on.

One talent I did not inherit is her ability to fold a fitted sheet perfectly. I know you think I'm overstating but in the closet you could never tell which were the flat and which were the fitted.

I've had her show me her methods. I've had her talk me through her technique...apparently this is the best I can do.

Let's all cross our fingers this isn't one of the tests during the home study.

Our Little News

So the Fykes have big news. Every time you say something like that when you are married without kids everyone assumes we're going to announce that we're pregnant.

We are NOT pregnant!

However!

Hopefully we're gonna have a kid in the next year. This month we kicked our plans to adopt into high gear. Well, technically we are really in neutral while we change our health insurance but the clutch is in and our hand is on the gear ready to go.

Joshua and I have always talked about adopting as a way to grow our family. We just feel like there are too many kids out there that need homes and we have a great one to share. So as soon as we get our new health insurance cards we'll be probed, questioned, fingerprinted, lectured to and then hopefully be deemed "fit" parents.

Stay tuned as the newest Fykes adventure unfolds.

G/T Class

I was in the Gifted & Talented program when I was in school. In elementary school they would take like 10 of us out of each grade twice a week and we'd work on logic problems, or take special trips, or have research projects. When I look back and think about it the kids that got pulled out for this didn't really ever have a chance of being "cool." Everyone in the class hated you because you got to go "play" while they had to sit and read about George Washington.

Anyway I'm a dork and I loved the logic problems and all the learning stuff but the one part of the program I hated was every year we had to invent something. Every year. Who can invent something every year?

One year I did a new musical instrument with little pieces of wire soldered to the inside of a coffee can that you filled with balled up Hershey kiss wrappers and shook around. The different wires made different sounds and that was my invention. It had a name, something like Plunker I think. Isn't that genius idiotic?

Well the next year I decided to invent something that woke my sister up. The idea was it was supposed to reach across the room and it would be a ball you drop into a shoot and it travels down this path and that hits a pulley that swings something around and eventually rings a bell by her head. Well the complexity of keeping everything going with my very basic understanding of gravity (I was like 10) the contraption would only work if I was a like a foot and half away from her. At that point you might as well just hit her upside the head or say "Get Up!"

Why am I telling you this?

1. I want you to know I had no chance of being cool.

2. I am not an inventor.

3. I have an insane appreciation for the complexity of this stunt.

Enjoy!

How I Work It

I typically use my looks to my advantage when there is something I want.

I'm sorry did I just hear laughing?

I know for most ladies that may mean "accidentally" dropping something on the floor to distract or a well timed hip movement with each step but we all know that's not the kind of looks I have. My "looks" go hand in hand with my ability to get into high school football games on a student ticket.

Over the years I have learned the only way for me to combat my overly-aggressive/must-win energy is to just play stupid. That paired with the fact that I look like the other professional's daughter doesn't make it hard to swallow that I'm just a naive young girl who has no idea what she's doing. It's how I got the oil rig to stop drilling for an hour in Oklahoma. It's how I get people on the other side of my real estate deals to give my clients a break.

I knew that sometimes it works in my favor, but this week I took a negotiating class and turns out Smart/Stupid is apparently a proven negotiating technique. With the right personality on the other side of your deal it'll mean they want to help you out rather than beat you into the ground. So even if you don't look 18, swallow your pride and play dumb a little more often and you never know where it will get you.

Perspective

The internet is a funny, funny thing. This is going to take a bit of thought but try to track with me.

No seriously, you might need to turn off your music for this one.

I introduced a friend to a blog I loved. That same friend has a great blog and is excellent at her trade. Eventually my friend ended up meeting the person who's blog I love. Because I love that blog and just knew they would be good friends I was all star struck and giddy about the meeting. However, my friend is so amazing that the person from the blog I love was all star struck of meeting my friend.

When I was talking to my friend about it she said. "The internet is so weird it makes people appear more special than they are." My comment back "No way - the internet just lets more people see how awesome and special we all really are"

Back in Tennessee for Now

What is up with this winter?

One light dusting is our typical winter and right now I'm looking out at our yard covered in snow for the 4th time. It's so funny because the rest of the Nashville is hating it and Joshua is all excited and giddy. I think spending 2 months of winter in south Texas where you can wear short sleeves once a week makes enduring the 23 degrees more bearable.

So here's the short form update. Joshua has been in Nashville since the beginning of February. All the horses are sold. When he left Texas the house was under contract. Today the contract fell apart and so we still own a ranch in south Texas that has a garage full of restaurant equipment. There's a short list of people who want to see it and one who says they want to make us an offer so hopefully this time next week we'll be back under contract.

Acclimating back to "real life" has been a little strange. Our life basically stopped on December 2nd and so returning to a world that has continued turning for 2 whole months is a bit startling. We are slowly getting our sea legs back but I'm trying to be okay being just a little shaky for a while. I would like us to be able to just jump back in but if we were going full speed then running into the brick walls we still hit (like contracts falling through) would hurt a lot more.

Almost There

(A few of the items that have vacated the premises during this trip)

As of last Thursday night, I'm back in Texas. Thus far this trip has involved:

moving a bunch of furniture (more than once), selling a saddle, getting carpet installed, having the painting touched up, getting the house clean and staged for potential buyers, showing the house all day Sunday to said buyers, payroll, bills, more bills, selling the tractor, selling the car, a bit of work for one of my clients, selling the hay trailer, cancelling magazine subscriptions, beginning the arduous process of cancelling Dish Network service (which involves climbing up the side of the house to remove a piece of "their" equipment for them, packing it all up, and then PAYING to ship it back to them....don't get me started about how backwards that seems to me)

Oh and I forgot to mention: I also sold the last two horses, and negotiated a deal with a buyer, so the house is unofficially SOLD.

Tomorrow involves moving a bunch of files and you guessed it: furniture, from our old storage unit to a new one. I received a certified letter on Saturday letting us know the storage facility we've been renting since 1997 for file storage and surplus equipment is going to be torn down to make way for a new restaurant, ironic isn't it? Soooo....we have until the end of this month to vacate. I'm really not upset about it, I had a good laugh when I got the letter (you have to laugh at that kind of thing right?).

I'm extremely thankful that by tomorrow night we will have all the horses gone and hopefully have a signed contract on the house.