jennifer patel

I can't remember September, except to say I have not watched TV or read my celebrity gossip the entire month. There is a stack of 5 on my night stand. With tears in my eyes, I deleted all recorded episodes of Project Runway knowing I would never watch them and to free up more recording space...to record more things I will never watch. I've chosen sleep, working out, and hanging out with Alex (and the occasional blog post) as the "free time" activities I can fill the rest of the day around work. *Whine, whine, whine about my self-inflicted busy, scheduled life. Most importantly, study the picture above carefully. Picture day was coming up and I panicked. I had the choice of having him look like a girl with his bangs way below his eyes (like last year), taking him to a random fast place (the day before pictures) to get a terrible haircut, or try to trim his bangs myself. As he whipped his hair back and forth (he whipped his hair back and forth) I tried to not...

"I never been to a hot air balloon festival..." Photo Credit: Sonal Kaki We read a book from the library called something I don't remember...but it was about a dog who accidentally takes flight in a hot air balloon because someone put fried chicken in the basket of the balloon. She doesn't eat the chicken, though she is tempted, and the book is about everyone trying to get her to land the balloon safely. The dog is rewarded for not eating the chicken without permission by being fed the chicken. I thought it was mediocre at best but it seemed to really stick with Alex. He likes to talk about hot air balloons a lot.  We tried our first ever cousin's sleepover this past weekend. I was really worried for my sister and brother in law that they would get zero sleep. I tried to make sure Alex knew that Mom and Dad would NOT be spending the night with him. The in-laws usually take their kids to the hot air balloon festival every year and V suggested they ad...

SMU fashion statement of 2015: Side boob...and lots of it! I gave it a day to try and be less judgmental, but it's probably not going to seem like it... Our friends invited us to the North Texas/SMU game this past weekend. They are Mean Green alumni and season ticket holders. This picture was taken as I was enjoying a nice meal in the Mean Green alumni tent. One theory of the scene I was watching was that it was fueled not only by alcohol, but also a large amount of illegal drugs...probably Ecstasy and Cocaine.  That is the only way to explain a rave under a tent in 90 degrees at 4:30 in the afternoon. DJ...check Spewing Beer over each other...check Dancing up on ya...check Scantily clad (the scantiliest) undergrad girls...check (is she wearing pants? No...) This area had it all. I think the real story here is that I am old. Watching these young people made me tired. So tired. And really thirsty. The day also proved that you can talk into a microphone in a cro...

Today at school I got one of my classes started on group work. While I was walking around "managing", a boy asked to speak to me in the hallway privately. He's on the smaller side for a 6th grade boy...easy to remember that he was just in elementary school 4 short months ago. I was expecting him to tell me he was getting bullied by people in class. Instead, he looked me straight in the eye and said, "You seem really nice and like you would be good at giving advice. I really like this girl and I need you to tell me what to do about it." Then he went into a story about how he wanted to ask her to the movies, but he didn't have any money and he had Netflix, but his parents would probably have to meet her parents before she would be allowed to come over. He said his last plan would be to invite her to next month's school dance, but he hoped to hang out before that. Then he went on to say how hard it was to get a moment to ask her anything because he was su...

Even cute enough to pull this off... I was driving down Story the afternoon the agency called to tell us we matched with a child. We matched much sooner than I had expected and I had to pull over to talk to the case worker. She asked if I wanted her to send me a picture. I reluctantly said yes and she said she would send it as soon as we hung up. I remember sitting in that parking lot and thinking, "What if I don't like the way he looks? What if I don't think I want to adopt as badly as I think I do...? You're a terrible person for even thinking any of this!" My heart was thumping and I was nervous. Forever later (like, 5 minutes) I opened the picture on my phone. You've seen enough pictures of Alex to imagine...he was scrumptiously adorable with his huge cheeks, propped up on his mini throne. It was love at first sight. As we waited over a year to go and get him, I constantly thought about what it was going to be like when we were finally a family...