This is a story about lawyers AND fried catfish. For our firm's Christmas party, we went to a cajun restaurant. My boss's husband (who is from Oklahoma) teases me A LOT about being from Arkansas. When I told the waitress I would like a catfish dinner, he mumbled in a disparaging tone, "Arkie." When the waitress took his order and he ordered the same thing, I mumbled back, "Okie."

Ok, so maybe this post wasn't that funny, but if you have some good Okie jokies, I'd love to pass them along!

Have a great day!!

I was surprised and disturbed yesterday when I discovered my e-mail interface through findlaw had been changed. At first I thought the good people at findlaw had deleted all my e-mails, folders, and addresses I had saved. I was devastated since that was the only place that contained addresses of 50 of my closest friends and e-mails with research and "job kudos."

Depressed, and pretty sick with a head cold, I went to bed. This morning, I discovered the e-mail fairy had come. She brought back all my addresses and saved e-mails. I found out I have a lot more storage on the account as well. Thank you, findlaw fairy, thank you.

Yep, today's the day. I realized I haven't written anything in SO LONG. I hope to write more soon, but now I must pay bills. Oh what fun...

Imagine a slide that is 10 feet from top to bottom and slants at a 45 degree angle. Now think of a seven-year-old boy sliding down it. Then, picture two-year-old twin girls chasing the boy and cannonballing down it without fear. This was our play time yesterday. I just am still in awe. Last summer, the girls would only go down our two-foot-tall slide on their bellies. They've lost all the fear.

Here's to living our lives boldly and without fear!

"Why is there a potato in the bathroom?"

"Please, stop licking the fireplace."

"We don't put our airplanes in the dishwasher."

more to come....

After a long, frustrating day juggling a sick husband, cranky toddlers cutting their two-year molars, cranky people looking for attorneys, and a pile of paperwork four feet high, I called my Mom for some comfort.

After some discussion about what I am doing with my life, my Mom gave me some sage advice: "you're doing what you need to be doing right now or you'd be doing something else." Thanks, Mom.

Warning: the following story might gross out a family member or two since it references kissing.

The very first Valentine's Day I shared with my beautiful then-future-husband was very sweet, but it also left me very confused. He asked me to come over to his house so he could cook me some pork chops. Nothing says lovin' like pork chops, by the way. At that point in our relationship, we were just really good friends--no kissing or anything like that. I sensed we both wanted something more, so I decided to put myself "out there" that day. I contemplated buying him a Valentine's gift. A week before the big day, I began polling many of my law school classmates to come up with something perfect. I wanted it to say "I like you," but not "I'm a scary single girl trying to trap myself a man." One classmate suggested refrigerator poetry magnets. I thought that was a good idea, so I went to a nearby store on my lunch break and bought them. In addition to the gift, I decided that was the night I was going to try and kiss him for the first time.

One week later, the big day came. I don't think I had any classes that day, so I put off studying to re-obsess about my gift choice. I decided refrigerator poetry magnets were a bad idea. To me, the gift gave a signal that I was looking for something long-term, since a person might keep them around for a very long time. I worried that being a part of his refrigerator might be too serious and domestic. I went to the grocery store and bought flowers instead. It was a mix of many types of flowers; the bouquet might have had a rose or two in it, but it mostly comprised daisies and carnations.

That evening, I met my then-future-husband at his house and gave him the flowers. It was the perfect gift! No one had ever given him flowers before, and if you know my husband, he loves flowers--alive, dead, or planted in the ground.

After dinner, we met up with a married-couple-friend of ours for dessert. I drove us there, and throughout the whole evening, I was becoming more and more anxious and excited about our upcoming first kiss. When we were leaving the dessert place, my future husband asked the couple to give him a ride home since they lived on the same side of town. I told him it was no problem for me to drive him, but he insisted. He seemed kind of wierd about it, so I said goodbye and went home feeling sad we didn't have our first kiss. I was so disturbed from the whole evening I decided to wait until finals were over before trying the kissing thing again. After all, I didn't want to get my head all messed up about a silly boy before exams.

Flash-foward two months, which was two weeks before final exams, the guy finally planted one on me. I was relieved I didn't have to worry about it any more, and it definitely DID mess up my head for finals.

After we had been married for some time, we reminisced about that evening. My husband told me the reason he asked for the ride home was because he thought I was acting wierd all night. He thought that I did not like him, and he felt he was wasting his time with me. We both laughed at how we completely misread each other that night and marveled that we were able to ever end up together!

Happy Valentine's Day!