Tuesday in Texas - Give Me An "I," Give Me An "E," But Don't Give Me Both!

As I sit down to write this, it is a perfect sunny seventy-two degrees here in Dallas.  

These are both unedited phone photos taken at approximately the same time.

Tracey, on the other hand, is working against the odds to clear the snow from her car so that she can make her way  to the bus stop to pick up Harry.  In her world, it is a not so perfect twenty-one degrees and snowing!  

Needless to say, of the many commonalities that Tracey and I share, weather is not one of them.  LOL!  Frequent misspellings of our names, however, is.

I find it funny that, for most of us, our names are something over which we had no say yet we take great pride and ownership in them, even becoming quite protective of them…meaning that we want them pronounced and spelled correctly!!!  My “real” name is Kristin, though during my life the only people that have ever called me this are my maternal grandmother, my godmother, and, on the first day of school only, every teacher that I had.  Even my parents never called me Kristin.  So, why didn’t they just name me Kris?  Short, sweet, and to the point…and it would have saved me lots of trouble with random and unwanted i’s and e’s!

And we won’t even talk here about how many times in my fifty-four years that I have said, “It’s Kris with a K, not a C.”  That is occasionally met with, “Oh, so it’s Kh?” "No!  It is NOT KH!"  This is the icing in the i’s and e’s cake!

Here are all the ways that extraneous i’s and e’s have been added to my name, making it no longer my name:

Kristen

Kristine

Kersten

Kerstin

Kiersten

(Apparently my computer is smarter than many people; it tried to auto-correct all of those misspellings for me! :-))

Many of these permutations have appeared on meaningless junk mail, but just as many instances have been by people who should have gotten it correct, but just don’t care enough or aren’t willing to take the time to get it right.

Two i’s, no e’s; that’s all I ask for!  I will gladly give Tracey all of the unnecessary e’s that people ahve tried to give me, as they are often left out of her name!

It’s Tracey.  Not Tracy.  Really.  I will give her all of the e’s that she wants!  She needs them.  I don't.  And, she promised to give me any unnecessary i’s that come her way when her name is spelled Tracie.

Neither one of us needs both an i and an e.  No Tracie and no Kristine!  We are both pretty happy with one vowel each.  Well, Tracey is kind of pushing the limits here with that y, which in her case, really is a vowel. LOL!

While you are minding your p’s and q’s, also consider your e's and i’s.  They really do matter!

Since we both have a quiet sense about us, we consider it a compliment when we are told that we complement one another quite well.  :-)

Mug Shots!

As we shared in our very first post here, on the surface it may appear that Tracey and I don't have much in common - she is a nothern girl living in Michigan and, now by default,  I am a southern girl living in Texas, she is a stay at home mom to an almost seven year old little boy and I am a working mom of two adult daughters, and she has a house full of cats and me, a house full of dogs with one brave cat - but, when it comes to the truly important things in life, we are right there on the same page.  We both LOVE coffee.  No matter the time of day or night, we are both either about to make, about to finish, or are in the midst of a delicious cup of coffee.  Our daily messages back and forth often rate the progress of the day by how many cups of coffee have been consumed so far.  So, it should come as no surprise, that we have given each other coffee cups as gifts over the year and a half of our friendship.

I gave Tracey this one this past Christmas.

Tracey gave me this one for my birthday at the end of 2014.  It was featured in my first Picture of the Day of 2015.

Another thing that we have in common is our sense of loyalty - loyalty to our families, to our friends, and to our coffee cups.  Neither of us is a collector of coffee cups and mugs.  We have our favorites and that is what we use, every day.  For me, if I don't have my morning coffee out of "the right mug," the above mug, then my day is off to a rocky start.  Lol!   I am not quite as bad as the toddler who won't go to bed without her favorite stuffed toy, but its close!  I have three mugs that are my favorites and I will rotate through them as needed.

Last Saturday morning we were texting back and forth.  (In case you are wondering, Tracey and I have never met, nor have we actually TALKED on the phone. :-))  The conversation started over the fact that neither of us is a really big Valentine  day gift giver, nor do we have expectations of the opbligatory cards, candy, and flowers.  We both prefer handmade cards, or a nice meal, or just some special time together with our families.   

Me: We are sitting on the patio with a fire in the fire bowl drinking coffee.  It is a chilly 47, but tolerable.

Tracey: I'd love to be outside - last I checked it was -4 actual with a feel of -17 thanks to the windchill.  

Me: Your temps make it seem like summertime here!...Weber did bring our coffee in mugs with hearts on them:-)  They were a Christmas gift from one of my students.

Tracey: Well there you go!  That's pretty Valentiney!!!  Just reminded me I need another cup of coffee myself...have only had one so far - eek!!

Me: You are behind on the coffee this morning!!!  I am on cup 2 and these are big cups!!!

Tracey: Lol!  I know - this is bad!!  Must get more caffeinated!

Tracey: We should do "mug shots" on the blog...just little what's it like here, like the one you just sent.

Me: I love it!!! That would be so much fun.

Tracey: I know we both can be found with mugs in our hands at any given point during the day!  Seems fun and do-able, especially if we use our phones.

And an idea was born!

Beginning this week we will be sharing further glimpses of our real and everyday lives through our coffee mugs.  This is not about the coffee mugs themselves, but where we and they find ourselves in the course of a day.  You will probably see the same mugs repeatedly, but the environments will change.  We'll see how it goes.  What's life if not an unpredictable adventure?!