Piedmont Place

Texas (through a dirty windshield)

2012-02-07T06:45:00.000-08:00

Where the trailer is bigger than the truck, and the pipe for the fence is bigger than the trailer, and the welder is bigger than the man and the pipe, and the herd is bigger than the fence, and the Texas land and sky is bigger than all of 'em....

Don't Tell Emily Post

2012-02-06T06:36:00.000-08:00

Man, this couple looks really happy and appears to be having a fantastic time together, at some sort of special occasion. And cute green dress, by the way. I don't wear strapless. If you need to know why, read this.

As it turns out, the special occasion was our wedding. I even recognize those white tablecloths in the background!

What I don't recognize, however, is this really happy couple appearing to have a fantastic time together at our wedding.

I'm sure Emily Post would look down on me posting this, but I just can't help myself. I've questioned our parents, my friends, and some extended family. No one recognizes this couple or even remembers them being at the reception or the church, but when the photographer handed over our big memory books, there they were. Smiling out at me, celebrating the day with us.

So, if you happen to read this and happen to think you recognize this couple - or yourselves! - please, lemme know. My curiosity is peaked! I would love to be able to put names to the faces. I'm sure it's extended family or a child of a family friend with his or her beloved, and I've just never met them face to face.

In any case, I think they might like to have this picture of themselves...it's a great shot!

The Pen

2012-02-03T06:37:00.000-08:00

Hi. Do you write? Sometimes, the hardest part is getting started. I'm not here to write a book or make you laugh (although that would be a great side dish). All I really want to do is keep a record that I can print out each year, so that Katie will have all these "books" she has to find a place to store one day, when she's setting up her own house.

Some days, though, it's hard to figure out how to start the writing....

But speaking of storage, our house doesn't really have any. That means I've had to come up with some really creative ways to pack away all the baby paraphernalia that she's no longer using, like her baby car seat and all the bases that go with it, her jumperoo, her swing, and her bouncy seat.

I'm so creative about it, that I've just got everything stuffed into our closet, on Brady's side. He only has one pair of shoes and a laundry basket over there, so there's plenty of room for ALL THAT OTHER STUFF.

Never mind there's also an old comforter piled on there that we just can't seem to shake, a set of luggage, and a huge bolt of leather.

Yes, like from an animal.

It's like the biggest air freshener you've ever seen.

Look at all the baby gear in this picture. Even back in the 70's/early 80's, when I was a baby - and cute, hey there! - there was SO MUCH STUFF.

Caravans of diaper bags, plastic stands for swings, PLAYPENS (calling it a pack-n-play is so long and cumbersome...not to mention it takes longer to type), and high chairs.

It's like Mama knew why she was taking this picture way back when: "Look at all this CLUNK you are going to purchase, set all over your house, and then have to shoehorn into the nearest corner/closet/oven/Sterlite container."

But let's veer off a minute and pay homage to the paneling, thick brown carpet, and color scheme of my babyhood....

Now then.

By nature, I'm a Thrower-Awayer. I usually have no qualms about throwing out bags, boxes, papers, and Brady's stuff.

Ha. Hi, honey. I'm KIDDING.

Did y'all ever see that episode of I Love Lucy where she and Ethel sell all of Ricky and Fred's old clothes and then tell them they were trying to clean them with gasoline, but they got too close to the stove and burned up into a pile of ashes?

No?

Okay.

What was I saying?

Oh yah. But this stuff is so expensive, I can't throw it away or give it away. What if I need it again? I can't re-buy this stuff. So, it stays. Just in case.

Although I really think someone should look into making a playpen that looks like a leather sofa, so that it blends in with the decor better. Or one that transforms into an ottoman or coffee table or something. Can't you just see a tiny baby swing fashioned like a LaZ-Boy recliner?

But then again, maybe not.... Seeing all that baby/kid stuff all over my house and in the background of my pictures feels like a medal of some sort. My badge of honor. I did it! We had a baby, and we are parents. We are taking care of a little person here: important work going on! It's like I've joined the club.

See this Little Tykes grocery cart?? That means there's a kid playing in here, people! Clear the way! And we got bottles, wipes, diaper boxes, books, storybooks, Golden Books, and have mercy some books, purses, sunglasses, tiny kitchens, and a few hundred toys that go BEEP in the night...WE HAVE ARRIVED.

So maybe it's not so bad to have pink and fluff and plastic spread all over the place...maybe it's actually kind of nice.

Katie's 1st Birthday Party

2012-01-26T14:31:00.000-08:00

For Katie's first birthday, we decided to have a small party, with just our immediate families in attendance. That way, we could have everyone at our house - and it doesn't hold many! - and our little shy girl wouldn't be too overwhelmed. She was still able to get her naps in, and she was happy and content.

Grandparents sat back and watched and smiled a lot. Mostly grandpas tormented the short people. Mostly grandmas asked, "What can I do? Can I wash that for you?" and said, "Here...I'll cut the pickles." Aunts and uncles took pictures, kept babies out of the presents, and set up sticky, drippy bubble toys. Babies crawled all over the place, dusting my floor and licking cupcake icing. Mamas and daddies wiped lots of faces and hands, sweated, and generally blurred over with happiness.

And then we all fell down.

Just in time to get back up and eat our BBQ sandwiches and blow bubbles out in the heat. It was August, after all.

Our birthday gift to Katie was her very first saddle. Uncle Willy's dad fixed up the one a friend gave us, including her initials stamped in the leather. We really love the way it turned out.

I tied pink and silver, glittery ribbon all over the saddle and the rocking horse on which it rode. It only took her a few days to get all the bows untied and all the glitter rubbed into the floors.

Brady's mom made the smash cake. She drew a little pony on it, just for Katie. How sweet?

I wondered if I was going to have to bathe her after the birthday cake was introduced; it seems many of the birthday parties I've attended for small people have involved icing everywhere, crumbly cake stuck to surfaces, and some sort of "hosing off" afterwards.

But not this one. She kinda turned her nose up at it. Her daddy had to coax her into sticking her finger into the cake, which she then daintily licked and offered to him.

I think she would have been just as happy with Puffs.

Or Poofs, as we tend to call them.

Which is fine...more for us! We were all hot, after all, and cake cools you off, right?

Shortly before the guests were set to arrive, Brady and I stuck the babe in her stroller and tied the balloons we got for the party to the handle, so we could all walk down to the road together and tie some on (balloons, hello) the mailbox and gate. What a tangled mess that turned out to be!

We were quite the site trying to make our way down the driveway in a cloud of pink and red balloons and iridescent heat waves.

I couldn't wait to get back to the house to cool off and get Katie and myself cleaned up and dressed for the party. Imagine my utter surprise to be greeted by as much heat INSIDE the house as outside when we walked in the door.

Broken air conditioner for our first birthday party?

Absolutely.

As a result, B and I spent the entire party in our old, sweaty everyday clothes, me with hair on top of my head and no make-up. The A/C repair man ALSO got a gift during Katie's party, and I'm not talkin' Skittles, cha-ching.

So, is it time for me to start planning the next party already?? I'm thinking maybe we'll start a brand new tradition of half birthday parties...that would be February! Sweaters, cold breezes, and hot chocolate, anyone?

Just Because

2012-01-13T08:43:00.000-08:00

A picture of my two favorite people in the whole, wide world.

This was taken way back before her first birthday, on our way into a doctor's appointment. You can tell it was on our way in and not on our way out by the huge grin on her face.

And, once again, she's sporting Mama's old couture.

Written to Moi

2012-01-05T12:19:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day

2011-12-16T06:39:00.000-08:00

"That dog is going to have the worst sinus headache."

~ Overheard while following a golden retriever in the bed of a Chevy down the highway.

I'm Gonna Need a Bigger Lunch Kit

2011-12-06T06:30:00.000-08:00

I get all warm and fuzzy just LOOKING at this picture of a Rainbow Brite lunch kit and thermos, circa Old As The Hills. This is the exact set that I had as a child. In fact, I'm fairly certain that Mama kept it, and it's packed away somewhere for safekeeping.

Why not, after all? It's not like this is the one that I upchucked in on the way home from school one day....

Boy, can I ever remember that day like it was yesterday. Mama had just picked us up from 3rd grade - our neighbor that we drove home and me - and my sister was already in the front seat. I was not feeling well, so some point between school and home, which is a 30-minute stretch, at least, I barfed all in my sister's lunch kit. If I remember correctly, it was bright yellow with red something all over it. Music notes? Perhaps. Who can tell? And I think there was a baggie of chips still in the bottom that she didn't finish at lunch that day.

In any case, you know she appreciated that, and our neighbor in the seat next to me REALLY appreciated it. I think I still owe him big time for that one.

So anyway. Lunch kits.

This really wasn't supposed to be a post about puking or inflicting lifelong barf pain on unsuspecting neighbors; it was supposed to be a post about how I've done a really good job in being a little more Earth-friendly. I've been packing my lunch everyday for work for a good long time now, but a few months ago, I finally cut out all those little Ziploc baggies. They're cute and functional, for sure, but I was just taking them home and throwing them away each day. Wasteful! (Say it in a sing-song way.)

I've heard some people wash out their baggies, so that they can reuse them. I have trouble with this. I've never actually tried it, but this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How does this happen? Do they get dumped in the dish water with everything else and soaped and rinsed and hung on the drain to dry? Don't they get all smeary and gross? I can't imagine this. What about all the tiny little crumbs? Obviously, it was just easier for me to invest one time in some tiny little Tupperware containers.

When I say tiny, I mean tiny. You should see how I have to cut up my sandwiches to get them to squeeze into this tiny little piece of plastic. It's either that or use two containers for one little ol' sandwich. And never mind if I have an apple cut up (If it's not already cut up, I won't eat it.), some chips, cookies (YAY, cookies!!! Hi, I'm five.), Cheerios, or some other processed, grocery-store bought goody-goody of yumminess. My entire lunch kit will be boxy and overflowing with little plastic containers and their blue lids.

Like I said...I'm going to need a bigger lunch kit.

Or smaller food.

Yah, like that's gonna happen.

You Say Scorpion, I Say Near Death Experience

2011-11-23T06:39:00.000-08:00

My first thought was to start this post with a picture of a scorpion, so I went to Google Images and got busy typing. When the page full of scorpion pictures started to load, I had a panic attack and died three deaths, so we're not going to have a picture of Satan's pet on here today. Feel free to google a picture on your own to sate your curiosity, if you're not familiar with the little buggers! And when I say "buggers," I mean Halloween Horrors Squared.

Why the vicious dislike of this little bug/spider?

Well, let me tell you. That's what you came here for, right?

In review: a little over a year ago, we moved into my grandparents' home, which family fixed up to make lovable for us and our new baby. No one had lived in the house for several years, and the barns and out buildings were pretty well deserted. After construction, we had successfully stirred ourselves up a mess of Scorpion, not to mention leaving tons of piles of debris for them to nest in and generally set up housekeeping.

We are slowly cleaning up and repairing everything outside and around the house, so the piles are slowly starting to disappear, but the scorpions are not.

They are holding their ground; picket signs and all.

It started out with spotting one curious looking devil in our hallway. I called Brady and expressed my disdain and near helplessness over the spider. He informed me that it was not a spider, but a scorpion. After closer, careful inspection, I became rooted in the camp of These Things Must Die Painfully.

Next, I discovered one while crossing the threshold into our bedroom. Just hanging out there, mixing in nicely among the knotted boards of our hickory floor.

CAMOUFLAGED.

This meant intention. The scorpion intended to hide and attack me. If the scorpion was just on its merry way for a drink from the toilet with no intention of touching me or my loved ones, it would be hot pink with green feathers trailing behind and jingle bells on its tail.

But no.

It was in disguise.

Guerilla warfare, people.

It was at this point that I began using black electrical tape to tape off any gaps, holes, openings, cracks, etc. that I could find while crawling and sliding across our floor. We love our little farmhouse, but have mercy. The gaps, holes, openings, and cracks abound. The whole house moves and breathes with us and the weather, and these scorpion doorways are the result. I figured if I taped everything off, they couldn't get in.

Smart, right? Good-lookin'? Absolutely not. Better Homes & Gardens just scratched us off their list indefinitely.

After this short endeavor in home improvement, there was a definite lag in sightings, and my heart began to rest easier. I stopped shaking out the sheets at night. I stopped picking all the clothes up off the floor, and I even took our bed out of the glass bowls.

Oh, haven't you heard? Those rascals can't climb up slick glass, which is why my baby's crib STILL sits in glass ball jars!

So, there I was, sailing along with my days and nights, when It happened. The Night. The baby was sound asleep. Brady was sound asleep. I was sound asleep. The house was sound asleep. I'd like to think the cows, horses, dogs, cats, and chickens were sound asleep, too.

That's when he decided to make his move.

I awoke with a start, because I felt something ON MY FACE. Right above my right eyebrow. ON MY FACE. The eyebrow ON MY FACE.

FACE.

Home to my eyes and mouth.

My face is near and dear to me.

So I sit up with a holler, which wakes up my sleeping husband, and I holler into the night: "There's something on my face!!!" I quickly grabbed it with my hand and slung it into oblivion...or so I thought.

Brady went and turned the light on and came back to check things out. I was frozen. I didn't want to know.

What if it was a snake?

What if it was a tarantula?

What if I had to start sleeping in the bathtub?

When he pulled the sheet back, there it was: SCORPION.

I slowly, with my sleep-drenched brain, put two and two together: that scorpion was on my face, seconds from stinging my eyeball.

I could have died.

My husband was non-plussed.

All I knew was that I couldn't wait to get on the phone with the bug man, to find out how soon they could get to my house with bug bombs the size of Toyota Camrys.

Hay, Girl!

2011-11-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

Faces.

Looks.

I've been accused of making some doozies. You can see from this picture that I started young. In my defense, I don't even know when I'm doing it! Of course, sometimes I do know. Ha. Those are the ones I should work on....

I bet that's the way I looked at Brady some many moons ago, when he told me that he, I, and our good friend, Christi, would be loading an entire trailer full of square bales - all by ourselves - in a town far, far away.

And the girl said, "Say what?"

You see, this was the situation: it was several years ago, before we were even engaged or married. The weather was dry and hot and dry, and there was no rain. (Hey...kinda like now!) Brady didn't work at a sale barn at the time, so there was no lovely hook-up for bovine and equine nourishment, so we were on our own when it came to The Hay Hunt.

And I guess I'm feeling it's necessary to write this story, so there's proof somewhere along the line that Katie's mama has a little bit of athleticism and toughness in her.

Obviously, Younger Me finds this really hard to believe.

Frankly, I can't blame her. My life has been punctuated by tripping, falling, dropping, and you get the general disastrous picture.

I've stumbled over my own feet in a parking lot before and had someone ask, "Are you okay?" And I had no idea why they were asking, because I stumble around so much, I don't even know I'm doing it anymore. Kind of like making those faces. I'm sensing a pattern here....

So in any case, there were three of us, and we had a few hours to gather and load hundreds of square bales from acres and acres of pasture to cart home with us. It was definitely intimidating.

Christi drove the truck and trailer, Brady stood on the ground and threw the bales up, and I lived up on the trailer, pulling them off the edge and stacking them. Which meant I gradually got closer and closer to Heaven, as our hay reached about three stories high.

For real.

Okay. Maybe a slight exaggeration. But only slightly.

And now that I think of it, I didn't really display any kind of athletic prowess or agility in contrast to my usual feats of movement. Instead of picturing Some Girl Power Ranger swiftly ascending on the newly loaded bale and whisking it up to the top of the heap with a sure thump to make sure it was secure, picture the same ol', clumsy me...legs slipping down through the bales, leaving me waist-deep in hay...Brady hollering, "You gonna make it?"...hay bales flopping down a level or two without my say-so...me sweating through my shirt...me grunting loud enough to compete with the diesel truck...Christi laughing at me in the side mirror....

So maybe this doesn't really paint the picture I was hoping for, but at least we got it done. We worked way into the dark, a well-oiled and highly sweaty team of hay-gatherers. When we'd gathered everything, we spent a while crawling all over the hay and securing it with belts and straps and rope, testing it and making sure it wouldn't cascade down the side of the trailer with the first turn of the highway.

By the time I climbed in the truck beside Brady to head home, I was exhausted. And full of hay. And sweaty and hungry. And there was hay down my pants, in my shirt, and stuck through my ponytail, but I was really proud of myself. Of all three of us, actually. Even though this is the kind of thing that Brady and Christi do nearly every day of their lives.

I felt so darned useful! I earned my keep that day.

Halloween in the Country

2011-10-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

Halloween in the country is totally different than Halloween in town...or at least, I imagine it is, based on stories I've heard from friends and family through the years. Here's Halloween in the country:

* driving from house to house, because there are no neighbors within walking distance

* wearing the same costume every year and calling it a "hobo" one year and a "scarecrow" the next

* getting brown paper sacks full of oranges and nuts from all the church ladies

And here's a tour of several WINNER costumes that my sister and I have donned over the years. Please take time to note that I couldn't function on Halloween without stuff on my face....

Up first:

This was a rare year, when I wore an actual, real, store-bought costume...although we didn't buy it. We borrowed it from a woman that my mom worked with. The sassy, winking face is a nice touch, don't you think? I wish I could say I was five-years-old and just plain silly, but man...I look way too old for this.

Does anyone notice the Hawaiian lei? Someone please tell me what THAT is all about. I guess I thought, "It's yellow. It goes."

The Hobo/Scarecrow scenario. We'd often wear the same clothes, over and over, and call ourselves one or the other. If there was hay sticking out of your shirt sleeves, you were a scarecrow. If not, you were a hobo. Get it?

And finally:

Man, my sister is gonna CROAK when she sees this mess. I was sporting my dad's coveralls and calling myself a mechanic. With a cigar, apparently???

And Lesley? Well, I'm guessing she was a senorita. Or a senora. Or a flamenco dancer? Who can tell...it was a hand-me-down dress-up outfit that she Halloween-ized. The fan is a nice prop, though, right? And that...afghan (?)...she has around herself?

The more I look at these, the more horrified and embarrassed I get.

I'm hiding all the way under my desk right now.

And Away She Goes

2011-10-21T10:59:00.000-07:00

This is the sign that my mother-in-law had posted at her house the day that Katie was set to arrive, to alert family members as they made their way through.

Their home on The Hill is a veritable Grand Central Station/welcome wagon to close family members, people in need, friends, friends of friends, distant relatives, people that currently live there, and people that once lived there. You never know who you might run into. It's the complete opposite of what I'm accustomed to, but I must say: it sure is fun and entertaining! A person is never turned away there, for sure, for food, comfort, bathroom facilities, a book to read, a swing to swing in, or Vanilla Wafers.

I think I might need to ask her about borrowing this sign - don't be ridiculous...of course she kept it - so that we can recycle it when Katie starts school, when Katie rides her pony for the first time alone, when Katie gets her driver's license, when Katie goes to college, and when Katie gets married.

That is, of course, IF I let her do all of those things.

Here lately, all she wants to do is ride her rocking horse, so yesterday, Brady taught her how to nudge and smooch her rocking horse into going, how to stop and say whoa, how to giddy-it-up, and how to thank the rocking horse after the ride with a pat and a kiss. How sweet is that? I'm constantly amazed at how quickly these little, tiny people pick up on things and memorize them.

She's such a fun toy!

Pet Peeves

2011-10-21T06:43:00.000-07:00

Pet peeves. As a rule, they're negative, not happy, and they don't spread good will. So read ahead at your own risk! I'm feeling the Monday morning need to vent, and who knows? Maybe someone will read and go, "Oh, is that the way it works??" And maybe they travel my highway every day and will make my commute that much sweeter, just for having read this post. I'm sure that's completely possible. I promise to only go on and on about ONE pet peeve...not the whole slew of 'em.

*********************

As some may know, I am a commuter. And although I probably fall into the category of short commutes, I still drive 40 minutes to work and 40 minutes home, every single day, on a highway, which boasts several lanes of traffic. And I think - this very weekend, maybe! - I am going to paint these signs on the back and sides of my truck, just as little reminders for my fellow commuters:

Quote of the Day

2011-10-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

"Well, I'm calling from my horse, so I can't talk long."

~ Overheard from a modern day cowboy stuck in some woods and in hunt of a cow.

A Ranch Wedding

2011-10-13T06:49:00.000-07:00

What better way to celebrate a wedding than to wait over a year and some months to blog about it?

Back in May of 2010, our good friends got married out on their ranch, and B was one of the esteemed groomsmen. He's the one on the far left there, in case you couldn't find him. The groom is in the blue shirt. They're all looking at the REAL photographer for a picture...do you think the photographer told them all to do that with their thumbs in their pockets, or do you think they did that naturally? I'm putting my money on the latter.

The only thing that could improve this picture would be if Baby Boy there had his thumbs in HIS pockets.

Well, that, and if B was in it.

[waving] "Hi! I'm biased!"

Oh, there he is again!

"Hi, Honeybun!"

With the thumbs again!

All the thumbs in pockets....!

I spent the entire wedding looking for places to sit down and sweat. I was six months pregnant, and while that wasn't nearly as big as my belly was going to get, it was the absolute pinnacle of Swollen Feet.

Man, some of my FLIP FLOPS didn't even fit. It was bad news bears, people. And kinda gross.

There was B, all spit-shined and pretty, standing with the other pretty people, shaking hands and smiling, and then whomever he was talking to would inevitably turn to me, despite my attempts to hide in my tent of a dress, and their smile would either start to slip or get bigger. Their facial expression said it all:

What happened here?

They were either offended or amused by my clown feet resting up on a chair or buried in the grass. I was officially a travelling circus.

Note the Lushness

2011-10-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

These are pictures I took over a year ago out in Piedmont. I was in the truck, watching while B went out to inspect his mare, Dixie, and her new baby.

These pictures remind me of a time when the grass was tall and green and healthy...not just the weeds. None of the trees looked like they were about to keel over and die on the spot, and everything was healthy and fat.

As usual, I was using my old cell phone, so I had no way to zoom. The pictures, as a result, are truly lacking in detail. It would have been really fantastic to be able to actually SEE the baby standing on the other side of Dixie, right? I think you can barely see two, dark brown legs dangling on the other side of her belly.

My sister has a smart phone, and the more time I spend around her and her phone, the more tempted I am to take the plunge. I'm actually eligible for an upgrade, but I don't do well with change.

Will I be able to handle not having a keypad? And there's so much SCREEN to a smart phone. Also, are they really all that smart? I know they're quite a bit bigger than my current phone. It's very convenient to be able to put my phone in my back pocket and not have anyone wonder who I'm smuggling into the grocery store. And will I have to cut my fingernails in order to be able to press things accurately on the screen?

These are important factors; I have to weigh these things carefully.

On the up side, the cameras on those things take better pictures than my digital camera! And the video is far superior to what's on my current phone. Seriously: on my current phone, you can't tell the difference between Brady and me in a video.

I don't know. We'll see. I definitely have some research to do and some phone calls to make. Mostly, I don't want any surprises on the bill after it's all said and done.

I think I'm done talking to myself now.

I'll just sit back and enjoy the green in these pictures.

That's Impossible

2011-09-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

While I was making Katie's supper the other night, I had her sitting on the kitchen counter in front of me, where she was fiddling with her brand new shoes. It took some doing to get her in these shoes in the first place, so that's why it was super duper okay to have them up on the counter. Of course, we'll try to discourage this as she gets older. Who wants a toddler tromping along the counter, kicking the toaster, smashing the bananas, and stomping through the sink?

I've met a small person or two that really loves wearing, picking out, and walking around in shoes: whether sandals or rain boots (Hi, Ellie!). My baby? When Grandmother brought her shoes for her birthday, she started shaking. You heard me. SHAKING. She was scared of those shoes! Understandable, though, right? I mean, they were a snake pit, full of quicksand; not a pair of sweet mary janes.

And so this was the result of never putting shoes on her, I guess. We had some newborn shoes...there was a teeny pair that her auntie gave her that would match her baptism gown. We put those on her. She looked like a cloud in Heaven. I picked her up, and they fell on the floor. As it turns out, the skinniest tootsies on the planet cannot hold onto a pair of Heavenly shoes.

There was a pair of spunky little pink and green plaid kicks that I really dug, but she couldn't keep those on, either. She wore them Thanksgiving Day, and by the time I was buttering my roll, I had scrapped the whole idea. I could only bend over and pick up shoes and put them back on so many times before it started to resemble exercise.

So, we just sort of left it alone. Kept her in socks and footie pajamas and called it a day. And then spring and summer rolled around, and she was one happy, bare-footed baby!

But then.

Then, she turned one.

And THEN, a week later, she started walking around. As in our little, helpless, breakable babe starting rocketing around like she was grown, and the house did not satisfy her. She wanted to walk outside. On sticks. And dirt. And through mud and rocks and cats and cow patties and other things that go yuck on the foot.

That meant shoes would be necessary. I went to the store and bought her some. When I sat down on the floor with her to show her the shoes and to attempt putting them on her, she kindly pushed them aside. She's so polite; she was so gentle. I think she even smiled at me: No thanks, Mama. You keep those.

This is when I put them on my toes to show her they didn't hurt. This only got her to actually touching them. Then, her grandma had the idea of putting them on one of her buddies, so Tootie (her best baby doll) was soon sporting new, pink shoes. I started walking her around in them, and Katie started laughing, smiling, and clapping. It was pretty precious.

This seemed to do the trick, and she was soon trying them on for size. Those actually turned out to be too big, so I went back and got a smaller size, and she's been cruising around comfortably ever since. She now holds her leg up when you want to put her shoes on, she lets you know when she wants them off, and she's completely turned the soft pink to brown from crawling over steps, dirt piles, tree limbs, and rocks. And Mama's back is in a perpetual state of pinch/sore/have mercy from leaning over to hold one of her little hands. She always looks up and back for my hand, so she can grab a finger or two, and I always happily oblige....

And I do realize that these pictures are old; it amazes me that the baby in these pictures is now walking around my house.

Julie

2011-09-22T11:02:00.001-07:00

So, my mom's a reader. A huge reader. She'll read just about anything, and she totes her books around in her tote bags and purses everywhere she goes. She is never without a book. Or her Sudoku puzzles, but that's something else altogether. She and her sisters will get on the phone just to talk about what they've just read, what they're about to read, and "Have you read this one yet?" If they travel to the big city together, they never head home without stopping at Half Price Books. Or Wal-Mart. Or the grocery store, for that matter.

One book I remember seeing her read when I was little was Catherine Marshall's "Christy." They even made it into a movie! Hollywood did; not my mom and her sisters....

Or was it just a mini-series for television? Probably that. And the main reason that even got my attention was because Kellie Martin had the starring role, and I was a huge fan of her and Life Goes On.

Fast forward a decade or more, and I'm moving into Aunt Freida's house. I discover the treasure trove of books left behind on a bookshelf in the hallway. As I'm perusing, I run across a turquoise, hard cover edition of a book named "Julie." I immediately thought of the resemblance to the single-named "Christy," which I've still never read. And what do you know...it's by the same author.

The book made the move to the country with us, and I've just finished reading it. Not so much because the summary on the back page drew me in...not so much because I'd heard great things about it (never heard of it, period)...not so much because I had a pet named Julie as a child...not so much because I had a best friend in 1st grade named Julie....

No, more because I absolutely could not pass it on or donate it without reading it first. It would drive me absolutely up a wall not to know what happened between those turquoise covers. I had to know. I had to be in on the secret.

And the secret? It was okay. I was entertained as I read about the beauty of the "olden days." When everything was proper and right and polite. Not the olden days of butter churns and log cabins and feed sack dresses, but the olden days of girls wearing skirts everywhere and no technology and everyone happily asking and giving permission to walk down to the soda shop with Biff.

I surely wasn't expecting it to be a story about a girl who makes it her goal to find out the mysteries and secrets of some huge, natural-built dam, for crying out loud. Is that weird?

Of course it is.

The Baptism

2011-09-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

Our baby girl was baptized in October. Yes, the one in 2010. And yes, that was months ago. I'm well aware.

I remember being very anxious and stressed about the event. For starters, that's what I do for a living: I stress, worry, talk about it a lot, eat ice cream, take a chill pill, and then start all over again.

Also, that was the first time I think she and I ever ventured out of the house - save for doctor appointments - since her birth day. I was worried about everything. How would I organize and take care of feeding our friends and family? How would I get the church and activity center lined up for the day? How would I manage to get invitations out? What would she wear? What would I wear? (That was the million dollar, post-baby, what's-this-around-my-waist question.) And would she do okay around so many people all at once? What about when the congregation started singing hymns, with the organ or piano? And oh my gosh...I forgot to start worrying about whether or not she would wail, cry, and/or scream up front....

Here's a picture of my mama feeding our girl while we did some set-up for the dinner the evening before:

Does that baby look "chill," or what?

Luckily, my Artsy Fartsy Crafty of a sister handled making it look pretty, and my parents helped us get food and everything arranged. Because I was useless. I was off my schedule, off my routine, and off my rocker.

I did manage, however, to get the invitations out ALL BY MYSELF! I had my Big Girl House Shoes on that day.

My cowboy fireman was a big help, too. Besides sitting around and lookin' good, he and my dad moved a lot of chairs and tables around, and then they moved them all around again, because I didn't like the first arrangement. Thanks, guys. I'm sure that had nothing to do with B's defeated pose. Although moving the tables and chairs a third time probably most definitely DID have something to do with it...especially since the air conditioner wasn't turned on yet. But he's used to the FIRE, right?!

And who doesn't want to top off a week of the military-esque fire academy with a weekend full of moving around furniture and fiddling with pink daisy centerpieces?

Raise your hand, sweetie....

Everything turned out really well, and it was a good day. The baby was an angel. (But you already knew that.) Everyone oohed and aahed over her, and she looked sweet and angelic and was perfection in church. All she did when the pastor pranced her down the aisle during the baptism was look around. She probably winked at people she knew, but I couldn't see her face, so I'm not sure. I just know she does that a lot.

Have you ever seen two people MORE in need of a nap?

Or a hairdresser? Cassie...where ARE you when I need you?!

But we were happy. We were all still breathing, the weather was nice, everything was coming together, I had zebra-printed earrings in, we were all full of food, we had help, our faces looked big from the self-portrait with the camera, and we were all still breathing.

I know this post is getting long - aren't they all? - but I've gotta show a picture of the daddy and his girl:

I get such a kick out of her expression. Does it look full of sarcasm, or what? She is definitely my baby!

During the dinner, Katie spent a lot of time napping with her great-grandma. I wish I had a picture of them together that day, but alas, I do not, but I won't soon forget them sitting there together. Nor will I forget that Jeffrey and Heather came all the way from Arkansas for the weekend. I can't believe my nephew, Jonathan, wasn't even here yet...it seems like he's been here and a part of everything forever.

I also won't forget her strawberry cake, decorated to look like her invitations. Or the fact that B's cousins came over after the dinner and hung out at our house, watching Katie kick around in her crib and listening to her Metallica baby lullaby CD.

And let's not overlook how we were all three on time to church! And fully-clothed! With shoes on and teeth brushed! That felt like a huge victory in itself. Especially after the 30 minutes I just stood in our bedroom the night before, counting back how early we'd have to start getting ready in order to drive out the gate on time.

I told you I worry for a living.

Friends

2011-09-21T06:40:00.000-07:00

They allow you to put pink bows on their very manly, macho, work trucks.

Pears & Chicken Cutlets

2011-09-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is one of the centerpieces from my sister's wedding...a Saturday in November not so long ago. I didn't take this picture, incidentally...one of her candid photographers did, during the decorating process. I also didn't make this centerpiece. Shocking! I know!

I am constantly amazed at the talent that some people possess. My sister worked with a local florist, and they came up with this together. That's talent, people.

I loved how dramatic they were; such statement pieces. The rest of the decorating flowed from these arrangements.

The entire time we were planning and decorating for her wedding, I kept thinking, "Ooh! I wish I would have done that!" I completely redesigned our 2006 wedding during her process, right there in my brain. Amazing how fast tastes and styles change and OUTDATE, isn't it??

About a month after her wedding, we found out we were pregnant. When we shared the news with people a couple of months after that, I had more than one extended family member tell me they knew at my sister's wedding that I was pregnant!

Wha?!

I'm not sure how they could know such a thing...especially when I MAY have been but one week pregnant at the time. I entertained thoughts that I looked chubby in the beautiful, black, billowy gown. (Love that dress, by the way. It's the only bridesmaid's dress not going in Katie's future dress-up stash. No offense Laura, Kelee, and Sarah! But I don't have to suck in in this one!)

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the chicken cutlets protruding from the strapless number. And if you don't know what I mean by chicken cutlets, just lemme know, and I will happily regale the phenomenon in detail.

On second thought, if you don't know what they are, don't contact me. Skinny people just don't get it.

I say that from love.

Perhaps it was something as simple as me toting around a Sprite can the entire evening. Nothin' says "Knocked Up" like Sprite. Except maybe a sleeve of Saltine crackers tucked behind my ear. Classy for a gorgeous wedding, regardless.

I finally decided to settle on the fact that I truly was glowing, as they said, because my body knew before I did. And because I was having such a good time. And because I got to do a lot of dancing with The Cowboy Fireman.

It's either that, or I have psychic family members.

Which could be really cool, or really, really scary.

The Fiasco

2011-09-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

Picture it: March 14th, 2011. It's the dark of early morning, and two humans are half asleep, groggy, and confused.

At 3:15 AM, the alarm on his phone has just gone off, alerting him that it's time to eat his cinnamon toast waffles and get ready for the station. She can hear his ankles creaking from not being used the last six hours as he stumbles around the bed, trying to get the alarm off before it wakes her up too much and disturbs the baby girl's sleep.

Once it's off and the house is again peaceful, she sees him standing there, just staring.

Her: "What are you doing? Did you fall back asleep standing up?"

Him: "Why does the clock on the dresser say 4:15?"

Her: "Oh! Daylight Savings Time. We sprung forward at midnight, or something like that."

Him: "It better not be 4:15 already, or I'm in a world of hurt."

Her: "Isn't your phone supposed to automatically update?"

Him: "Yah, but it only says 3:15. What does yours say?"

Her: "Mine says I should be asleep and not conversing in the dark. I mean, 2:15."

Her Again, In Disbelief: "2:15?! What in the world???"

Him: "I need to know exactly what time it is."

Her: "What a fiasco. And since when do plug-in alarm clocks reset themselves? They're smart now?"

Him: "Call someone."

Her: "It's 2:15 AM. Or 3:15. At best 4:15. Who would you like me to call?"

Her Once Again, Awfully Chatty for Whatever Time AM: "I'll call the operator. Maybe the operator knows...."

Him: "What about that number that you could call that would tell you the date, time, and weather?"

Her: "Oh yah! I'll look it up on my phone."

The female human involved in this fiasco finds the number, connects, and waits for the operator to begin talking.

Her: "Okay. She said it is definitely 3:15! So go get ready, and I'll fix all these clocks tomorrow."

The next morning, her cell phone's call history is still displayed on the screen, and she notices the number she called earlier that morning wasn't a 1-800 number or a local number. She looked up the foreign area code: Milwaukee.

What time zone are they in, anyway?

The Long, Long Trailer

2011-09-09T06:22:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned my love of all things Lucy on this blog before? Surely. Truly, the only kind of Lucy I love is the black and white, I Love Lucy T.V. show. The newer series with just her and Vivian Vance, in color? No thanks. That's just weird. I'll take Lucy in her apartment - doesn't matter which one - or living in the country, or in Europe, or in Hollywood, or in Florida. That's MY Lucy.

I didn't finally open my mind to a Lucy movie until almost a year ago. Baby Katie was only a few months old, and she and I were spending a Sunday at my parents' house, while Brady was at the station. We were back in my old bedroom, where Katie was napping on my chest. I was supposed to be sleeping, too, but it just wasn't happening. So I turned on the T.V., and what was staring back at me? LUCY! Only, she was in color, with flaming red hair, Desi still by her side. It was the movie The Long, Long Trailer. It was already halfway through, but I felt it was my duty to watch. After all, I love Lucy, and we, too, have a long, long trailer!

The first picture is right after she and Desi get married in the movie. They are attempting to make a grand getaway in their new, yellow convertible, with their brand new, yellow living trailer attached to the back. Every time he attempts to get the car going, Tacy (Coincidence that her name so closely resembles mine? I think not.) begins her waving and good-bying, and the guests start whooping and hollering and throwing bird seed. But the car doesn't budge. After several tries and replays, Tacy embarrassingly whispers to Nicholas: "Did you take the trailer brake off?!?!" Of course, he hadn't. The trailer brake is Nicholas's nemesis throughout the entire movie.

The second picture is actually from the END of the movie. I put them in order just for you.

They share a moment at the end that I am CERTAIN every couple has experienced at LEAST once in their journey together. I can actually feel it in my gut, right along with them. Neither one truly wants to be angry anymore, but neither can bring themselves to say they are sorry. Finally, when Tacy thinks Nicholas is actually going to get in the car and leave her, she goes running in the rain to apologize. This, of course, unleashes Nicholas's barrage of regrets and apologies, too, and they all live happily ever after, and I start to breathe easy again.

When this movie was on the weekend that everyone was celebrating what would have been Lucille Ball's 100th birthday, I recorded it on the DVR, and I asked Brady to watch it with me. Over the course of several nights after putting the baby to bed, we made it all the way through, ice cream in tow. Pun totally intended.

And while we're on the subject of towing ourselves off the couch after all that ice cream, if there was one part I wanted him to suffer through for me, it was the part where they make the near vertical climb up a mountain with their long, long trailer. It's like I'm in the car with them. I find myself leaning forward in the couch, trying to help them up the incline. It's quite funny how they try to talk themselves through it.

But before we bid this bright and entertaining movie adieu, please look at this last picture to get an idea of what our travel trailer looked like back in February, 2009, right before we moved in to it:

I was in such a panic over where in the world we would put everything, and how would we function in a travel trailer??

As it turned out, those were some of the best months of my life.

But I still think it would have helped to have seen this movie FIRST.

Animals

2011-09-01T14:03:00.000-07:00

Who can pay attention to the bucket full of kittens with all the 80's going on?

Heaven on Earth

2011-09-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

It's a phrase that is often overused, this "Heaven on Earth." But how else do you describe a place or a scene that fills you with peace and happiness and hope and the desire to be good, do good, and feel good, all the time?

I think God does give us little glimpses of how Heaven might look and feel right here on Earth. When that feeling takes over, it's probably Him.

This is the view down our road in Piedmont, looking from the spot where the pied-a-terre sat towards the gate. I know I am weird, but this is my favorite kind of road: the kind with grass down the middle and just a little dirt and rock mixture for the tires. No asphalt, thanks. No gravel, thanks. No concrete, thanks. Grass in the middle! Like a well-worn path....

Makes me wanna drive on it...or bike on it (no coyotes, please)...or go for a long walk....

The second picture is the gate or entrance to our piece of Piedmont, with the sun setting. And taken with just my little cell phone!

Not that I think the picture is quality; simply you can actually see what it is, and it is pretty.

There have been plenty of days when this place has frustrated me, exasperated me, drained me of every last coin, and left me wondering how, when, and why until I could have cried. On days like this one, however, all of that other mess just fades away, and I am grateful.

Especially with all the fires blazing around us, in every direction, I know how lucky we are to have a place to fret over and to appreciate at all.

Let's Give This Man a Break

2011-09-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

These are some of my favorite pictures of the mister. This is how I see him in my mind, when we're on the phone or if I'm just thinking about him in general: What would he like for supper? Is there enough Coke in the house to get him to next week? Is he getting some playtime with Katie? Is he safe? Cowboy hat on, a little red and sweaty from hard work, but still grinnin'. Because he's always grinnin' like he's up to something. He's also always happy to be working (most of the time, anyway)...helping someone else, tending to all of the animals, making our places better, or building something for us to enjoy.

I think it's been getting kind of sticky around here lately, though. We're all sticky from the three-digit heat wave and complete and utter lack of rain, and when you pair those two things with all the work and maintenance that needs to be done? Well, like I said: a little sticky.

The cows are hungry. The horses are hungry. There's no grass. There's no hay. There's no money. The dogs keep barking at the horses, because they keep nosing around the kennels, wondering if they'd like to eat whatever the dogs are eating. The cats are on edge, because the dogs are barking at the horses.

And then we stand on the hill one evening and watch across the road, as two trailers haul the neighbor's cows away, to the sale barn. Sobering, no doubt.

We took a break after supper yesterday from all the seriousness by going on a Jeep ride through the pasture. Baby girl LOVES this! She's such a shy little soul; I am always sure the Jeep engine and all the bumping and galumping around will terrify her, but she enjoys the fire out of it. She just sits on my lap and grins the whole time, wispy little blond hairs in her eyes. Every once in a while, she'll look back and up at me, grinning so big, I can see her tonsils.

This completely does me in, by the way.

Please, no one tell her what gluttons we become when she pulls this move...or she'll be cruising around town in a pink, Carebear-encrusted Corvette with Elmo himSELF before she hits five....

105 Degrees

2011-08-31T13:23:00.000-07:00

That's 105 degrees Fahrenheit; not degrees of separation between Kevin Bacon and me.

Slight tangent: when I hear Kevin Bacon's name, I'm torn as to whether I should conjure Kevin Bacon a la Footloose, Kevin Bacon a la Hollow Man, or Kevin Bacon a la Will & Grace. Footloose will forever be one of my favorite movies of all time, right along with the soundtrack. Hollow Man was an experience I could have happily done without, and it totally notched my level of respect for ol' Kev. And the episode of Will & Grace where Jack is the ultimate fan and the scene closes with him and Will dancing to Footloose with Kevin himself? That restored some of my respect, and the laughing was a really healthy workout for my gut.

So back to the heat.

This is our pond out in Piedmont. At least, this USED to be our pond out in Piedmont. It's where we relaxed on floaties and waded around and got mud stuck between our toes and goosebumps when we hit the cold current towards the bottom. It's where the kids that live near here would play volleyball and bring their dog to cool off in the afternoons. It's where the horses come to drink and tippy toe around and even get belly-deep.

This is our pond out in Piedmont NOW:

Is that one of the saddest things ever, or what? Seriously. It's from almost the exact same angle. We knew the concrete culverts were in there for the fish...a toe was occasionally stubbed in the summer months, but we'd never actually laid eyes on them. Those kids playing water volleyball that I mentioned before used to STAND on these things, putting the water level at their chests.

Just looking at this picture makes me really, really, really thirsty.

So much for those daydreams of cold-water wading. The kind I got to do last summer, while still pregnant with The Girl.

Granted, it's not the clearest piece of pool water I've ever stood in, but it's there, it's natural, it's free, and it feels really refreshing on a hot day. Or even just a slightly warm day. Or the kind of day we've been having around here lately...the kind that could skin a cat and BBQ your chicken tenders from the next town over.

Traditions

2011-08-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

Traditions. They're everywhere, aren't they? Our friend, Sir Webster, describes them as such: "the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth or by practice."

Yah, that sounds about right.

First to jump in my brain are the holiday traditions...perhaps going to cut down the family Christmas tree, going with all of your aunts and cousins to Wal-Mart for sales the day after Thanksgiving, watching a Charlie Brown Christmas with your kids on a pallet in the living room, exchanging one gift on Christmas Eve, going to Christmas Eve church services with your grandma, hunting Easter eggs on the church playground, or eating hot dogs on New Year's Eve while writing in the air with sparklers.

Over the course of the last year or so, we've discovered that firemen have a lot of traditions, too. Now, we haven't really been linked in long enough to know them all or really understand them all, and I for sure know way less than the husband. But the traditions are there, and they are serious!

A fun one I witnessed first hand is the graduation trip to the Firehouse Saloon. All the then-cadets, now-rookies, go right after the ceremony. What an establishment! Fun times, lemme tell you. But maybe in another post. Not now.

Now, I'm just gonna tell you about their traditions. Like DRINKING OUT OF A DIRTY BOOT. And that really doesn't need anymore explanation, does it?

And then there's the signing of the aforementioned dirty boot. The husband was nine kinds of honored as the chosen author. He proudly penned 2010A on the boot, for the 2010 Alpha class. He took this responsibility VERY SERIOUSLY.

And I took my job very seriously of making sure he brushed his teeth, used mouthwash, brushed his teeth, and then used mouthwash again after drinking out of a dirty boot.

And Now I Know

2011-08-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

Since first meeting the mister in the school yard decades ago, I've seen him in various stages of "play." Innocently enough as a little man, mischievously enough as a little bit bigger man, with wild abandon after hours of thankless work as a teenager, with calm and roguish charm as a college man, with relish on vacations after earning it, and with kindness and creativity as an uncle - both literally and figuratively - to all the little people swarming around us.

I began to wonder what he would be like with his own baby. After watching him take care of horses, cows, dogs, and everything in between with such kindness and continuous concern, I had no doubt he would be a great daddy.

But how would he be when playing with his own? Would he be as energetic and excited, after already taking care of them for hours on end? Or would he be constantly erring on the side of caution, being very careful every moment?

Not so much. And isn't that one of the many assets of Daddy? He teaches you how to jump in with two feet, to not be scared, to try things, and to be brave and confident. Mama? She teaches you to brush your teeth.

In Daddy's care, there is full-on toy attack of the living room, with lots of babbling and ha-has and grins. In Daddy's care, there is tumbling and wrestling and rough housing on Mama and Daddy's bed, with jumping and rolling and hiding in the covers. In Daddy's care, there are shoulder rides everywhere, where she grins and claps and spurs him on excessively. In Daddy's care, there are cookies and Gatorade. In Daddy's care, there's swinging really high in the pink swing, with lots of oohs and aahs.

As a result of being in Daddy's care, there will be more trips to feed the hog dogs, more trips to let the horses out, more trips to check the hay and the water trough, more bruises, more scrapes, more bumps, more rickety jeep rides, more horse rides without a helmet, more fun, and more freedom.

And now I know how he is with his own.

Baby! (Said with a Squeal)

2011-08-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

"It is the nature of babies to be in bliss."

~ Deepak Chopra

T-Shirts by Default

2011-08-08T07:22:00.000-07:00

T-shirts and socks. We go through 'em like water over here. Well, I don't, and the baby girl doesn't, so I guess that leaves just one culprit.... When you pull a white t-shirt out of the closet, you never know if it'll be covered in a rust stain or punched full of holes from stray welding sparks.

That's a good feeling, right?

"Babe...where did all of these tiny, burned-looking holes come from?!"

"Oh...sparks from when I was welding...they flew down my shirt."

"Oh."

As a result, he's forever asking me to pick up more t-shirts or bringing them home from the Wal-Marts when he's in town running errands, which is exactly what he did this last time. When he got home with his loot, he asked me if I could wash 'em.

"Absolutely! I'm good at washing."

Fast forward a couple of days, and he goes to the closet to get a t-shirt. He puts it on.

"Um, Susie Homemaker, did you baby huey this shirt?"

That's code for: "Woman, did you shrink another one of my shirts in the dryer to the extent that my belly is now sticking out of the bottom?"

"Baby huey" is a verb in our house.

Every single t-shirt was too tight, too small, and entirely too short. I knew I wasn't THAT bad at washing clothes! Come to find out, he'd picked up a package of boys' x-large t-shirts, not men's. Whew. I was in the clear.

And let's all take a moment to picture him in those teeny shirts.

....

Lucky for me, I guess: I am now the proud, new owner of five bright, white t-shirts. Good for sleeping in, working in, lounging in, and running through the sprinkler.

Family

2011-08-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

They ride in the squished back seat of the truck all the way to Houston and back, so that they can entertain and feed your blue-eyed girl.

The Hedge Clippers of Life

2011-07-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

I don't really know that I'd be smiling this big as I scaled down a 7-story building. Of course, very little physical activity brings a smile to my lips, much less a grin this big. Perhaps he's just so happy to be heading back to solid ground...that's probably something to smile about.

Incidentally, this is one of my favorite pictures of B. It made me worry a little less about him every day when I saw HOW MUCH FUN HE'S HAVING! I'm sure he'll get a kick out of reading that and wonder what fun I'm talking about. But it was definitely easier to swallow him crawling into things on fire and full of smoke and suffocating in gear and working himself 20 pounds lighter when I could picture this happy face in my brain.

During the course of B's academy stay, I learned a lot of new stuff right along with him. Nothing near on his level, but little bits and pieces along the way.

When quizzing him for all of the exams, I learned that the pictures of wounds in those text books are not something I can handle. They make me dizzy. Maybe a lot car sick. For sure they make me a prime lab rat for him to test all of his new skills on, as I sway, turn blue, and slowly crash to the floor.

I think one of the most interesting things I learned, however, was about the jaws of life. Should that be capitalized? I'm thinking maybe so. The Jaws of Life. It's serious business. It should be said with an echo and a booming speaker. THE JAWS OF LIFE.

Well, anyway...when I heard the term Jaws of Life in the past, I pictured something huge. I'm talking made of hard steel and welded together with bands of concrete and maybe even monster-teeth fashioned from scrap metal and gravel. When it's needed, it comes creeping in with destruction on its mind and frees the caged with vigor...metal crunching and groaning and squealing from the pressure.

Once the trapped is let loose, it creaks and squawks as it slowly moves backwards from whence it came; it's too big to turn on a dime or flounce off in a happy "job well done" way.

But guess what?

I was a little off.

Check it:

Not quite the same, eh?

I guess you can imagine the confusion I experienced when I got to see the picture of B using the Jaws of Life. I was all, "Is that it, in the top right of the picture? You're getting ready to drive it or man it or whatever?"

Him: No.

"Is that it at the top left? Like, the spoiler on it or something?"

Him: No.

"Why can't I SEEEE it?!"

Him: Because it's in front of me...what are you talking about??

"Nothing. Just never mind. I'm still delirious from those pictures of The Spiders That Can Kill You Dead in your textbook. Thanks for that, by the way."

Texas

2011-07-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

Where the dog, the truck, and the trailer

are always invited to the party.

Favorites Friday

2011-07-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

the hospital marker board
her 2nd day of life
written by her mama

I Heart Comics

2011-07-19T06:31:00.000-07:00

The Shoot

2011-07-12T06:39:00.000-07:00

So, my sister got married back in November of 2009. It was a beautiful affair, with well-chosen bridesmaids' dresses, a sentimental location, and lots of dancing and laughing. And okay...so some of the laughing was AT the dancing, but we're all good sports like that. Before all of the ceremonial splendor played out, however, there were the bridal portraits.

When I had my bridal portraits made, it was just me, Mama, the photographer, and my sister, who spent her time taking pictures of me from right behind the photographer.

That's legal, right?

For my sister's turn, there was a lot more traffic. There were all the usual suspects: my mother, the photographer, me, and a can of hairspray. But instead of snapping the incognito photos myself, my mom's friend came along to fill that job. Lucky for her: she got to witness The Crazy up close and personal!

My sister actually invited me to PARTICIPATE in her photo shoot. Can you believe it?

"Hey...come stand next to me and mar the glossy finish."

In addition to the extra shooter, my dad came along. The photographer was actually glad to have him...if not a little surprised...there was a lot of equipment to hunk around the grounds of the garden where she had her pictures made. Dads aren't usually a fixture at such fluffery. My dad especially: just picture the cowboy hat and boots tromping through the posies.

Oh! And the hairdresser. Hair-doer? Beauty shop lady. Hair whipper-upper. She came, too. That's how we roll. A can of hairspray is not enough...we're gonna need the salon owner to come, too. Thanks.

We brought her specifically so she could fish out all the bobby pins and wash our hair at the end.

I'm kidding! She wanted to tag along...she was probably hoping for a little Barbara Mandrel karaoke on the ride down....

Please don't mind my hillbilly self. Looks like I could have used a little assistance from the beautician. Where are they when you need 'em?

But the sister looks...man, like a bride! Beautimous.

She had quite the posse with her, and everything turned out really great.

At least, until I fell back into my usual graces and went and broke something.

Why does that happen? The falling. the tripping. The breaking of stuff. The overall klutziness. B can't wait for the baby to start walking, so he can stop sweating over whether or not I'm going to drop her.

And here's where I confess that I have fallen while holding her...and he had a front row seat! I sure bet he was glad. Everything turned out fine, though, so not to worry. I tripped in a hole in the ground, and down we went. I caught myself on my knees, though, and the girl? She laughed. Great. They're both going to forever be standing back, watching me Three Stooge my way through life, laughing. I'm so happy they can bond like that.

Of course, I then had to spend the next precious fifteen minutes of our lives showing him the hole I tripped in, to prove that it wasn't just me, (I'm not sure he saw it.) and asking him, "Do you think she's okay? Do you think I scared her?"

His response?

"She was grinning. I think she's fine."

I'm not convinced.

So back to my breaking of personal property.... I was just leaning there on the post after changing out of my gown (which I did in the TRUCK, by the way - thank goodness for gangsta-tinted windows), watching the show, and THUNK.

Newel post, rolling down the steps, Clark Griswold-style. And me lurching forward. Once again, luckily, I did not bite the proverbial dust. I just pitty-patted and floundered around a bit while everyone stared before I blurted out:

"Man! What happened here?!"

Like I had nothing to do with it.

A little gum and elbow grease later, and you couldn't even tell....

That's Pretty Crumby

2011-07-08T06:36:00.000-07:00

So, this is what I was jammin' to on my way to work this morning:

"Hello baby.
I'm sorry I said the things I did.
It was a silly fight.
I was wrong you were right.
What I really meant to say is....

You can eat crackers in my bed anytime, baby.
You can kick off all the covers in the middle of the night.
You can sleep with the window open wide,
Do anything as long as you're by my side.
You can eat crackers in my bed anytime.

I should be happy.
No dishes to wash now but my own.
No clothes to pick up.
A double bed to myself now that you're gone.
Oh but it's lonely.
I'm sorry I ever let you go.
It's a matter of fact; I've got to have you back.
I just want you to know....

You can eat crackers in my bed anytime, baby.
You can kick off all the covers in the middle of the night.
You can sleep with the windows open wide.
Do anything as long as you're by my side.
You can eat crackers in my bed anytime.

You can sleep with the windows open wide.
Do anything as long as you're by my side.
You can eat crackers in my bed anytime.

Whoa, you can eat crackers in my bed anytime, baby.
You can kick off all the covers in the middle of the night.
You can sleep with the window open wide.
Do anything as long as you're by my side.
You can eat crackers in my bed anytime."

Did you know Barbara is from Houston?

And yes, I know how cool I am. You don't have to tell me.

In the Cards

2011-07-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

Does this scream BAD DAY to anyone else?

6 Months

2011-07-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

This is one of Katie's 6-month pictures. She's wearing - surprise! - some of my baby clothes again. The "shirt" is mine. Although it's supposed to be a dress! SOMEBODY is so stinkin' long for her age, though, that she's wearing it as a top. With little pink pants.

The top has a lace-trimmed collar and little pink ducks and yellow flowers embroidered on it.

Isn't it funny how babies are always long, not tall? All because they're not yet walking.

Last Saturday, she visited the mall for the first time. This in and of itself is not surprising, since it's the first time I've been to the mall in...months? A year? More?! When we entered through the children's section of Dillard's, I felt so out of place. I've never entered through that door before! Which makes sense, seeing as how I've never had children before....

It was amazing how entertained she was by everything. It was very quiet and empty in that section, and she leaned herself out, stretching her arm, trying to reach everything we walked past. A smile was plastered on her face the whole time.

We didn't have much luck finding what we were looking for in her size, so we cruised on down to Gymboree. I've walked by this store for years in my mall hunting, but I'd never been inside. It's a whole new world with little people, isn't it? Seeing the pediatricians' offices from almost six feet up instead of two...the babies' and kids' sections in stores...trying to figure out baby shoe sizes...being asked if you need a highchair in restaurants...riding in the backseat with the car seat all the time....

As Katie's grandpa held her while we walked the distance from Dillard's to Gymboree, I felt this ridiculous need to protect her from the crowd.

"No one touch her!"

"Don't look over there, Katie!"

"Grandpa, please don't trip!"

"Nobody crowd her!"

It was nuts, but I can't help it; these things just started running through my brain, and I didn't really feel any better until we were sitting in the booth at Casa Ole, the whole restaurant near empty at only 5:30.

I guess it's a good thing that we live so far from civilization...it will be a rare occasion for her to ask me to drop her at the mall. I only assume girls do this from the books I've read and the stuff I've seen on T.V. It's not exactly something I was cognizant of, growing up 45 minutes from the nearest mall.

I remember someone asking me once if I'd ever snuck out of my house. The only appropriate response:

"To go where? The hayfield?"

Needless to say, unless I planned on walking to my grandparents' house (where I now live!), checking our mailbox, or hiking to the church, I was really better off in the house.

But hey! That was okay...we had antenna T.V. (in the living room only), cassette and CD players, long distance phone service, and ice cream in the freezer. On the weekend nights, when friends would call to see if I could go to the movies in Town, my immediate reaction was looking at the nearest clock: Okay...movie starts at 7:30...if I can get ready in less than 30 minutes...and if Daddy drives me instead of Mama (we could get there seven minutes faster)...I can MAYBE make it by the time the previews end. If I get off the phone RIGHT NOW. And if Mama and Daddy immediately say yes, no coercion needed....

Never mind we just got home from Town if it was a Friday night.

And never mind I hadn't eaten supper and probably wouldn't have time to.

And never mind that meant my parents would have to sit in town for the duration of the movie, because how ridiculous to drive all the way back home and come back to pick me up?

Horror of realizations now setting in: I guess I'll have to do the exact. same. thing when Katie becomes "movie-aged."

And this is where Mama and Daddy start laughing and giggling and being generally unbearable at how things come full circle....

Last Year

2011-06-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

A year ago this month, B hooked up to the pied-a-terre, and he made the big move to attend the fire academy.

This is our set-up, parked at my parents' house. (Anyone else noticing the cedar tree in the process of falling over?? Funny the thing you only notice in pictures....)

On this particular day, we were just going to set up the pied-a-terre, get it stocked and organized for him, and pin down directions and driving routes. Also, I kinda wanted to see where he'd be living every week for the next several months! May I also add that I was seven months pregnant at this time....

And also? It was HOT. H.O.T. HOT. Sweat-dripping, A/C on high, my-candy-bar-just-melted-in-the-cup-holder hot.

Two hours after pulling out of my parents' driveway, we arrived at the pre-ordained, private hook-up spot, many thanks to some great friends and a former employer.

Once we took stock of the situation and figured out everything we'd need for putting down roots, we headed to ye olde wal-mart for supplies, parking at the back of the lot with all of the other travel trailers and RVs. May I add that his location was so close to the ocean that I could smell the beach and the salt, and seagulls were munching on Doritos just feet from our bumper.

After getting all of our supplies, we made one more stop at Home Depot for "hook-up stuff" and headed back. The entire time, I had this feeling in my stomach that tomorrow was the first day of school, and I had just bought my supplies and was heading to tour the campus.

Yuck.

I knew I'd soon lose B to this place for four days out of every week for the next several months, and I didn't much like it. In fact, I hated it.

While B spent the next hour or so (felt like fifteen) leveling and hooking up water, electricity, and sewer, I went inside and organized the kitchen and the bathroom with all of the staples we bought and made up the bed and lined the trash cans. And then I blinked twelve times and smoothed my left eyebrow.

Such detail, man.

Then, I fell outside and collapsed on the tailgate. Did I mention I did all of that "fixin' up" inside with no A/C? That part wasn't going just yet. And did I also mention I was seven months pregnant? Yah...hello heat stroke.

My shirt was sticking to me, and all I wanted to do was take the baby belly off for just a second, so that I could cool off and breathe.

Alas, that was a fruitless endeavor.

I vocalized my joy with a wimpy "Hot dog!" when B finally declared he was done, and it was time to head home.

Just reading this post gives me that yucky feeling in my stomach all over again. I'm so glad that part is behind us; I don't know how we did it, but we did, newborn baby and all! Thank you, Lord....

And please don't make me do it again.

The Corn Crib

2011-06-28T06:39:00.000-07:00

I could get lost in this picture. I've been sitting here and staring at it for a good ten minutes, at least. My sister took it. Everything seems to look so much better through her camera.

This is the corn crib at my grandparents' place, the place we now get to call home. (We get to call their place home, not the corn crib. We don't live in this corn crib. Aren't you glad I cleared that up?) This side of it faces into the backyard.

A corn crib is technically a ventilated building used for storing unhusked corn. My grandparents had a huge garden, and this is where they stored all of their...wait for it...corn!

I love this little building. I love the shape of it, I love the red doors, and I love the little light bulb that hangs above the door and lights it up at night.

From the house, you can look straight down the hallway and out the back and see it framed in the doorway to the screened porch.

It obviously needs some work and a little TLC, as most every building out there does right now. Repainting the red will definitely give it new life. Along with mowing the grass!

There are already a few ideas in the works as to how it will be used in the future, but just to add to a difficult decision, what would you do with this building? It has the two doors in front and two separate rooms inside, but it could be made into one. And there is electricity, though I couldn't tell you how crude it is.

So...any great ideas out there?

Home Sweet Home Away

2011-06-21T06:18:00.000-07:00

When we first bought Piedmont, a solid half of it was covered with brush, trees, weeds, and scrub brush. The only way to make your way through most of it was by following the deer and old cow trails. Most of the time, ducking was in order, lest a beheading took place. When you're ducking down below branches and bent at the waist half the time and sticking your arms and legs out in front of you to knock down spiderwebs, it feels like another day and time. It feels like you're a kid again and playing in the woods and using your imagination to conjure up all sorts of things.

We eventually decided in favor of extra pasture space for the cows and horses and began the process of cleaning out all the underbrush. We just kept the big, old trees that we found hidden in all the mess. I couldn't wait to see what it would look like when it was done...all sloping grass with aged oak trees scattered throughout. And now, we're years on the other side. It seemed like such a daunting prospect, and now, it's the norm.

We knew when we bought Piedmont that it would require a lot of work, a lot of expense, a lot of time, a lot of love, a lot of sweat, a lot of labor, and a lot of work. And also? A lot of sweat. And patience!

I had so much fun, pre-bulldozing, crawling through everything and hunting out the big, beautiful trees and marking them with a gigantic "X" for saving. I guess an "S" would have made more sense, huh? We do sometimes miss the privacy that all of the brush and undergrowth provided, especially when camping, but I think that having the grazing room and giving the trees more room to grow won out in the end.

And on the plus side? Coyotes can't hide in the big, clear open! I never expected to run across that particular brand of four-legged animal on the one afternoon I decided to ride my bike down the dirt, rutted road instead of just walking or jogging. I'd seen snakes, raccoons, possums, birds, deer, horses, cows, dogs, and cats...but no coyotes. Until that day, anyway. As I rounded the bend on my very old, very used bike, I came within about four yards of a scraggly dog. I thought, "Man, that is one tall dog. And he looks funny. Wait a minute...."

Yah. Coyote. We were both frozen on the spot. But not for long. Within seconds, he was running back into the woods, and I was pedaling back to our end.

Once everything was cleared out, it was time for the big bonfires to burn everything. We had a pasture party, with friends, family, and lots of BBQ. It was so much fun, just sitting around in camp chairs and talking well into the night, watching the fires burn. It's amazing how beautiful the clean-up can look at night! In the morning, however, you're met with a different scene. The remaining piles looks sad and ashen, and they're still there, waiting to be buried or hefted away.

There's always one more thing to do and one more project to start on. It's really daunting sometimes. I often think starting from such a blank slate is even harder than fixing up a place that's crumbling down around you. With The Blake Slate, there's always that worry in the back of your mind that you're putting something in the wrong place or doing it wrong or that the layout isn't going to pan out over the years and if other buildings, animals, and fences are added, will it still be functional? With a place that's already set up, someone else has done that job for you; whether they've done it well or not, it's done.

So many days, less than halfway through, I found myself standing under the nearest tree, t-shirt sleeves rolled up to my shoulders, hair wet and sweaty under my cap, and hands on my hips while I tried to catch my breath, just waiting for the pounding in my head to subside. It never ceases to amaze me how my husband and my daddy can continue to work in the heat, with seemingly no break, while I nearly crumble like a rotted twig after such a short time.

I guess what I'm trying to say with all this guilty I-Feel-Like-We-Deserted-Piedmont rambling is:

Dear Piedmont,

We'll be back. Please be patient with us. We'll soon come for longer than what it takes to check up on everything and feed. As soon as the farmhouse no longer looks abandoned from the road, and as soon as the baby girl gets a little bit bigger, we'll be there for weekends full of camping, cooking out, swimming, riding, and sweating. Pinky swear.

Home Sweet Home

2011-06-17T06:23:00.000-07:00

Every evening, when I come home from work, this little girl meets me. Not by herself, mind you. Grandma brings her out, but they meet me at the gate, and Baby Girl gets so tickled and waves and smiles and grins and tries to throw her sun hat off her head....

And then, she wants to crawl in the window to me, so she can stand up in my lap and grip the steering wheel and punch all the buttons. And wait...let's just climb right up ON the steering wheel. There...that's better!

From that point 'til bedtime, she doesn't leave my hip. I refuse to put her down.

The Rental

2011-06-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

I was going through old pictures on my laptop at home, when I discovered the mother load of before and after pictures from the Oakwood house. Of course, when I look at the after pictures now, I see so many things that are no longer my style or that I would have done differently.

This is the before picture of the one and only bathroom in the house, found in the hallway:

There was so much carpet. And so much yellow. And so much carpet.

But isn't it wonderfully "old fashioned?" Doesn't it just remind you of going to your grandparents' house and eating fried chicken and taking a nap on their bed and watching The Price is Right while laying on your stomach on the floor in front of the ENORMOUS cabinet T.V.?

No?

Never mind, then.

When I was about to move in, there were some things I knew just had to be done to update and clean up the bathroom. The first was obviously getting rid of all the carpet, some of which looked bleached. I just can't abide carpet in the bathroom. Hello, water damage!

So, we started by ripping out the carpet and putting down some new flooring. Then, to break up all the white and show off the tiling on the bottom half of the room, we painted the top half of the room. When I say "we" in reference to all this work, I mean me, my sister, Brady, and my parents. Seriously, these people have spent the better part of the last decade getting me settled in different places.

I know the Yacht Club Blue paint is pretty wowza, but this was the first place I ever painted and got to pick the colors, so I went a little bananas. Which reminds me: it started out yellow on top, and boy did that ever look squeamish.

Other than painting and the floor, we updated the sink hardware, changed out the lighting, and painted the cabinets, knobs, and hinges. All in the master bedroom on sheets of plastic while listening to old country on the radio.

Looking at the after picture now, it would have looked great with a frame around the mirror, or a different mirror all together, and that cowboy hat picture of mine is hung way too high, I think. And etc., etc., etc., etc....

Anyway...these pictures were taken back in 2004, and if nothing else, the spruced up space felt clean and fresh. Between 2004 and 2009, I got very comfortable in this bathroom. I would read in the bubbles, while Penelope offered support from her perch on the edge of the sink...and the heater I had plugged in on the floor would get so hot, the hard-won paint on the walls would start to drip right down the white tiles.

I'm kidding!

Or am I?

They don't call me Fire Hazard for nothin'....

Hi. I worry a lot.

2011-06-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

For the first couple of months of K's little life, she went to daycare. When her grandmother would finish at school, she would go to the daycare, pick her up, take her home with her, and keep her until I got there after work. Most every evening, by the time I got to her, she was sleeping, just like in the picture. Completely knocked out and exhausted! I spent so much time being so worried about her needing more sleep...but that all seems so long ago now...I can't bear to think about how tired she always was! But a recent event reassured me that, despite my worries, the baby is more than fine. She is thriving, and everything is okay:

When I got home from work yesterday evening, I came down the driveway, and what blessed sight met my eyes?

My husband.

In a blow-up pool from The Wal-Mart.

But wait! He was talking to someone..and then I saw it: a tiny little poof of blond hair above the edge of the "pool."

When her daddy finished telling her that Mama was home, she turned towards the driveway, and I saw her little blue eyes peeking at me. She made her way over to the edge, stood up, clapped, grinned, smiled, and generally destroyed me. Within seconds, I was next to the pool, in my work clothes, on my knees, and wet.

She was all happiness and sunshine and light...tucked into a 4th of July bathing suit that her daddy bought her.

And she was fine.

Even without all the naps I thought she really, truly needed during the day in the beginning, she is fine. I know this, because I can still hear her squealing with delight and splashing around and grinning from here to Dodge.

A Story

2011-06-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

He's checking his mic. The videographer asked him to wear it, so they could record the vows during the ceremony. I wonder if he's saying: "testing...1 2 3...testing...."

Or maybe he's saying: "It's really hot in here."

Or maybe he's saying: "I could really go for a cheese sandwich and a Coke on ice."

I never even knew that he was wearing a microphone until after the wedding, after the honeymoon, after the moving, packing, and settling in, after sending the songs to the videographer that we wanted included on the video, and after we got the DVDs back, crisp and ready for our viewing pleasure! Perhaps someone said to me along the way that, "Hey...Brady will be wearing a mic, so that you'll be able to hear everything later," but I don't remember it. I was a little distracted, yah?

I think B even forgot that he was wearing it.

Why do I think that?

Because he showed me so when we watched the video a couple of months later. We were snuggled on the couch, me WAY more excited about the prospect of watching two long DVDs than him, and I begin to see myself emerge with my daddy, ready to walk down the aisle.

Brady sees me at the end of the aisle, and he goes:

"Hey girl!"

In his delectable roguish fashion. No one in church could even hear; I certainly never heard back at the other end of the sanctuary, blood rushing to my cheeks as everyone stared at me, the sound of my own heart thumping in my ears.

But that little mic!

That little mic heard everything!

The memory of his voice, so happy to see me, made the images of my own face a little easier to swallow while we watched the rest of the ceremony. I was more than happy to fast forward. He wanted me to fast forward, because he was getting a little bored. I wanted to fast forward because of all of the facial expressions crossing my face every single second.

First I looked pained. Then elated. Then happy. Then worried. Then weird. Then gigantic weirder. (Why wouldn't my face hold still?)

It was quite painful to watch.

Everytime I bemoaned the twitches and convulsions weirdly happening on screen, he piped up from the couch cusion, "Hey girl!"

He's so funny.

I'm thinking we need to get him a mic to wear around permanently....

History

2011-06-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

In a few short days, The Husband and I will celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. I can't believe how fast it's flown by. After we got married, I remember driving down the highway, to and from work, and thinking about how we should celebrate the 5th...maybe a fun trip or something! Now I'm thinking maybe for the 10th!

There's just so much right now...the baby is so little, we're still adjusting to the new fire schedule, etc. But I guess there's always so much, isn't there? I'm sure when the 10th rolls around, we'll be exhausted from chasing around an almost six-year-old and unable to find someone that will come and chase her for us for a few days. And we'll probably still be broke and busy and tired. Did I say that already?

I will, at least, be taking a vacation day from work, so I can spend the day with him.

He's really excited about this. Really.

In December, we'll celebrate 11 years together. A decade + 1.

ELEVEN.

I remember hearing about him before I saw him again. I say again, because we went to school together from pre-K (or thereabouts) to 2nd grade - him in the 1st. Yes, I am The Older Woman. I was at a wedding with my parents for someone that my dad worked with, and we saw his mom and his aunt on the lawn after the ceremony. We started talking and catching up and discovered that I would be working in the same office on campus as him.

"Do you remember my son, Brady?"

The name was very familiar, but I couldn't conjure up an image. He tells me now that, when his mom asked him about me, he remembered me as bossy.

Can you believe that? No anniversary gift for him!

But he tempers it with that fact that I probably HAD to be, because I was the oldest of everyone that hung out after school waiting for parents to get off work, and they were all so bad....

Nice save, I say.

The first day that I saw him in the admissions office, he was grinning and had a backpack slung over his shoulder, with a red tag on it that said something about beef. He had a cute grin and a mustache. And he knew every single person that he walked by, and he talked to every single person that he passed.

He remembers that the first time he saw me, I was wearing a pink scarf in my hair to hold it in a ponytail. May I say that impressed me immensely.

One day, well after we were good buddies and fast friends, one of our superiors came in and announced that we would be set up as partners to handle all of the paperwork. She paired me with B. Guess who did all the work.

Guess who's still doing all the paperwork, nearly eleven years later.

After dating for a few weeks, I felt like I'd known him my entire life, and we slowly discovered how much our pasts twisted together, bringing us back together.

I remember watching him rope, listening to him play the guitar, ogling him with his horses, listening to him laugh with his roommates, being fascinated at his ability to fall asleep everywhere and anywhere and anytime, helping him clean stalls every Saturday morning and afternoon (People, if that's not love, I don't know what is.), jumping when he'd whistle at me each time he saw me, riding in the truck with him, eating at Sonic and McDonald's with him, having picnics in Piedmont, being the gate-shutter and backer-upper while working cows, reading out loud to him while we drove...and I remember each day being better than the one before it.

Where did she get those feet?

2011-05-26T06:26:00.000-07:00

Where did you get those feet, baby girl? And where do you plan on getting shoes to fit them?! Perhaps Auntie Heather could start making you shoes, along with the bags, dresses, bloomers, bows, blankets, etc. that she generously outfits you with on a regular basis. When Auntie has her baby girl one day, your closet will wither and die.

Except it won't! Because Auntie Lesley will be there, with all the quilts and pillows and pictures and videos and outfits and pink stuff. It's a good thing you have the two of them. It's a good thing that I have the two of them. I just get to sit back and go, "Awww!"

This is a picture of you, sitting in the Pack N Play (PLAYPEN) with your girl Tootie. You become so ecstatic when you see her. There's the wide opening of your mouth, the happy giggle laugh, the squeal, the grabbing of her, the stuffing of her to your face, and the kissing of her with your mouth wide open. It's glorious to watch. You probably learned that from me. That's exactly what I do when I see you or your daddy:

I get ecstatic, giggle, squeal, grab y'all, drag y'all closer to me, and slop sugar. It's nothing if not sloppy.

Your younger cousin, Jonathan, has bigger feet than you do (it's all in the toes), and he's four months younger! So you definitely do not get your feet from the same place as he does. I don't know that my feet are so small, really. 5 1/2 in boots, 6 in dress shoes, and 6 1/2 in tennies. Why is that, by the way? I can usually never remember which is which...last time I tried on shoes, I just said: "Bring me everything you have between a 5 1/2 and a 6 1/2, and hold that little pantyhose bootie thing."

Your great aunt, however, has teensy feet. She's the one that's our neighbor. I'm sure you'll be terrorizing her here shortly, just as soon as you can walk and run. (Aunt Kay...lock your door!) I think she wears somewhere around a size 4, but it's been a while since I quizzed her on her dogs.

That's what your daddy sometimes calls them. You can ask him why later.

So maybe you get your feet from your maternal grandma's side of the family! It would be interesting to know, wouldn't it? It'll also be interesting to figure out if freezer tape or duct tape will keep your shoes on your feet better, too. Not that you're wearing any yet.

Hi, Heather Armstrong! My baby is a hobo, too!

Please read her book. It's laugh out loud funny.

I just don't see why you need shoes if you can't even walk yet, and all you do when you have socks on is take them off and try to digest them.

I think Tootie's feet might actually be bigger than yours....

As the World Turns

2011-05-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

* Please excuse the hat tip to a soap opera that I have unwittingly watched off and on since I was small and actually had summer vacations...it is no longer with us, and I do sometimes miss it. *

Webster's (we're good friends) defines history as a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc., usually written as a chronological account. In case anyone cares, I think that's a good definition. I applaud the use of the descriptive narrative. When I think of history, I don't hone in on dates or wonder about the decade and which party was in power. I think of the story.

I want to know: why is he dancing? Is it because of the weather? Did he just hear good news? Did someone teach him a new dance step, or is he teaching someone else? Was he laughing at the end of this shot? How big is his audience?

Do you wonder what the boy is thinking in the next picture? Does he whine to his grandpa, wanting to know when they get to go back to the house? Or does he ask if they can go farther, stay longer, and ride more? Is it a school holiday, making it blissfully fun? Or just another weekend, and perhaps they do this EVERY weekend?

Maybe this took place after school let out for the day, and he's either excited to go home and have fried chicken, or he's dreading the homework that awaits him. And what about the grandpa? Is the shirt blue? Or is it pink? Does he have a sense of humor, or is he all business with his grandson...or grandnephew, maybe?

There's a song that I hear on the radio from time to time, and it has this line that I can never get out of my head: "Everyone dies famous in a small town." Try to read that with a twang and big hair if you could, and maybe a rhinestone belt. I don't know who sings it or the name of it, but it's on the country music stations.

That's right. Country. Yeehaw.

I think the line is pertinent. I think it's true. So much happens to all of us and we have so many thoughts and emotions within every second, minute, hour, and passing of our days. Life goes by fast, but it is so, so full of...everything.

Did you remember to tell all of your stories? Does someone know about the famous person that you ate lunch with in college? Does someone know the independent, scary things you did by yourself that made you confident and brave? The stuff that even you can't believe you did? Someone needs to know.

Someone needs to know if you rode your horse in a parade for the first time through the middle of town, and even though there were sirens and bells and bands and singing and whistles and hoots and hollers, THE HORSE DIDN'T THROW YOU. The horse throws you every morning at home, in the serene silence of the hay patch, but not on Main Street. And when you got home and offered a carrot stick, the horse spit it back at you.

The feelings and the atmosphere and the LIVING are all the best parts, so I'm gonna start telling some stories here. Not mine...I'm already telling plenty of mine...but everyone else's. Maybe you'll like to read them as much as I like to hear them. To go "oh my gosh I can't believe they did that back then, too." Or to think: "I never knew that about her."

Happily, I happen to know who the people are in these pictures, and I know a few details of their taking, but I wish I could ask them face to face. I wish I could ask them what they had for breakfast and how they fell in love and why they named their babies what they named them and what they wanted to be when they grew up, but since I can't, I'm going to go and ask as many people as I can now.

His Last Graduation - Maybe

2011-05-23T06:53:00.000-07:00

Brace yourselves...this could be a long one! As it should be...he's done a great thing, so that warrants great blog space.

Back in January (yes...four months ago) The Husband graduated from the fire academy. I've slowly been regrowing my insides ever since they burst with pride over his accomplishment.

When I first met B, he told me he just wasn't a school kinda guy. It didn't take me long to discern that he likes to learn new things, he's incredibly smart and gets the grades, and please watch the vocabulary he likes to sling around when you're not expecting it, but he just couldn't swallow the concept of sitting inside all day. When you could be outside. With horses. And dogs. And grass. And fresh air. Doing useful stuff. Let's not even get started on his thoughts of homework...done after all the sitting in the building and not seeing horses and not breathing outside air, but the recycled air from the library and the cafeteria.

So instead of diving into horses and haystacks head first, chaps flying, he decided to go to college. Off to the 4-year university he went. When he took a break about 3/4 of the way through to accept a ranch-managing job that he'd always wanted to try, I wasn't all that surprised. And truly? I couldn't blame him...it was right up his alley, and it was a beautiful place. He was in his element and thrived. But, like all things in life, the job and the situation was fluid, and it was eventually time to move on to other things. This is when he decided to go back and finish school...good, happy news.

And when he graduated that time and hung up the beaten up backpack and mortar board, I asked him, "So, what next?"

You could have knocked me over with a feather: more school. Academy-style. With uniforms and running and sweating and long hours and not being home and testing and sweating.

Did I mention the sweating?

Once the academy came to a close and we began preparing for the graduation ceremony, I then hear about going back to school again for a fire degree and then back again for a Masters in Speaking Spanish (that's the technical wording right on the diploma), all to advance and enhance the job.

For someone that really can't swallow school, he sure seems to be going an awful lot.

I know it's dark and kinda hard to see, but he's in that line up, ready to go. Ready to be official. Lookin' all uniformed and handsome. (Hi, honey! Don't blush.) A serious perk for having a "B" name...front row, baby!

I'm just sitting here and thinking how helpful that badge could be. I think I might start carrying it in my purse on his off days. I'm sure that's totally legal and acceptable. I might even need a special holster for it.

They ended up not wearing their hats for the ceremony, which was fine, because there was a baby doll in attendance that needed it. It complimented her Vintage Stacey apparel quite nicely!

I hope she doesn't mind constantly rockin' the rewear...as in stuff that I wore 30+ years ago! But I can't help myself...I think it's SPECIAL. And some are groaning. I know, I know...she does have some clothes that are all hers, really! They grow out of everything so fast, though, so rewearing stuff that I - or my sister - wore saves a little money, too.

Not that I'm a penny-pincher or anything. Ahem.

I thought the little light blue dress would be a nice, matching touch for her daddy's dress uniform. And boy...does it ever bring out those baby blue eyes! I'm so in love with her eyes....

I was just telling my mother-in-law the other weekend that her daughters-in-law brought her some blue-eyed grandbabies into the fold!

You can't hear her, but my baby is asking someone to please take her home and put her to bed. She cannot figure out why she is up, awake, and out and about in the middle of some city. Where is her Harry Elephante? Where is Lambchop? Where are her soothing raindrops?

If only we had heeded her warning. We had no idea what she was storing up for The Most Important Part of the Night.

She was about to remind us of her routine. She was about to let us wear it right in front so many people.

This is where I mention how she chose to let everyone know during the pinning ceremony just how far past her bedtime it actually was:

She looks calm and normal enough, you might say. But you would be wrong.

Oh so wrong.

The moment we had to go on stage under the bright lights in front of the crowd of people - who supportively clapped and hollered and whoo-hooed - she lost it. Absolutely. Lost. It. She did the same thing when the bagpipes started to play. Really...if I had anticipated bagpipes, I could have warned her. I think I started crying when they played, too.

So there we were, up in front of everyone, cameras clicking, Important Fire & City People all lined up, and she is BAWLING. She is red-faced and MIGHTY unhappy. Every hand that B shook as we walked off stage said, "Don't worry...my kid did the same...." She must have heard these comments and decided to show out and best them all...it was THAT LOUD.

But it's okay, baby girl...Daddy will NEVER forget his pinning...that's for sure!

What I Wore Wednesday

2011-05-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

It's not Wednesday. Wednesday was yesterday. Of this, I am well aware.

What else am I well aware of? The fact that I'm wearing the exact same, plum-colored, 3/4 length sleeved shirt as the last time I did one of these "posts." That can't be good.

In addition, I'm sporting some light khaki SLACKS (Hi, Mama!) and dressy flip-flops. Using the word dressy makes them okay for work, with SLACKS. I specifically remember buying the pants at Dillard's on clearance. They were a little baggy, but I figured most of my BLOUSES (Hi again, Mama!) would cover the extra bag. The length and the color and the price were so perfect, though - and my need for pants so great - that I got them. And guess what?

The bag left town.

They are no longer my baggy pants. They are my pants that fit just right. Whoever thought that good-fitting pants would be such a letdown? I know why they fit, though...because I insist on drying them in the hot, hot dryer, where everything shrinks. Except the length of pants, because that is still the same.

Curious, isn't it?

I can also attest to the fact that the pants are right over four years old. How do I know that? Because I just noticed on my calendar that a third cousin of mine is celebrating her 4-year wedding anniversary on Thursday, and I bought the pants shortly before her wedding. I know this, because that was the first time I wore them: to her wedding. Don't worry! I dressed 'em up...dressy shirt, heels, that sorta thing.

Weirdo that I am, I also remember standing outside the church after the ceremony with my parents, and my mom says to me: "Are those The New Pants?" (You see...I buy clothes so rarely, it's a family event.)

"Yes."

"They look nice!"

The end.

The flipper floppers weren't even a personal purchase, although they are quite a bit newer than everything in my closet. My sister bought them for me right before Baby K arrived on scene, from The Target. Very cute...with a fabric top that is multi-colored dark greens and browns. And I know what you're thinking: how do those match?

Trust me; they match. And do you know why they match? They match, because I don't have any plum-colored or brown shoes [GASP!], so green meshes nicely. I told the shoes just this morning, "You're gonna match, and you're gonna like it."

Saving grace? My purse is also green...the purse my motha bought for me, also from The Target. So see? I match perfectly.

Not unlike the matching skills I put to use in this outfit:

I just noticed for the very first time that Mama is behind me there, fidgeting with something or other. Making sure I don't come apart, I guess.

I'm also sitting here realizing that I'm going to have to tote my green purse to the bathroom and to the copy room, so that everyone at work will know that my shoes match.

BIG. SIGH.

References Available Upon Request

2011-05-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

So, I went to see one of my best friends in the hospital yesterday...she just had her second daughter, and boy! Is she ever LITTLE! She weighs about the same as my baby weighed at birth (see most adorable picture to the left there...no licking her sweet cheek through the screen, please thanks), but for some reason, she looks very tiny. I guess I've gotten very used to my "big" baby! I forgot how little they start out. And how breakable. And squirmy. Except when they're not, and then you can't stop putting your hand to their chest or back JUST TO MAKE SURE.

Baby K is really lucky that those baby fingers made it to nine months. She's lucky I didn't kiss 'em smooth off her hand. And who can guess what those hands are capable of doing NOW?!

In this day and age of cell phones, iPads, and all those other whatchacallits, it's really no wonder, and I'm sure Baby K isn't alone in this, but....

My baby can send picture mail.

You heard me.

Baby K (often known as The Life Changer) and I were sitting on the couch yesterday evening, just playing around, and I let her punch around on my phone. Which was turned off. But then I hear that "ding-dern-ding!" that signals it is TURNING ON. At this point, I reprimand: "You little turkey leg stinker poo with sweet little bow lips and oochie koochie mama loves you...."

Five minutes later, my phone goes off with a text message. It's from my sister, commenting on the baby picture I just sent her. Only I didn't. The baby did. She somehow managed to send the screensaver picture to her auntie.

"Dumplin', did you send Auntie a picture mail?"

Blink. Blink. Grin.

"I'll take that as a yes. Now here: pay these bills for Mama...."

The Cafetorium

2011-05-16T06:38:00.000-07:00

Ah, one of life's biggest mysteries. Teachers call it the cafeteria. Parents call it the cafeteria. Kids call it the cafeteria. The principal calls it the cafeteria. The lunch ladies call it the cafeteria. The Voice on the PA system calls it the cafeteria....

So then why did the little plaque on the push doors to the cafeteria that labeled it say cafetorium?

Oh wait! I'm remembering as I type...and here Webster's backed me up:

"–noun
a large room, especially in a school, that functions both as a cafeteria and an auditorium."

Is that efficient, or what? Just smash the words together to illustrate their dual purpose. Perfect. It's the same as our dining room serving two purposes: it's our dining room, because it has a dining table in it, but it's also an office, because the laptop is sitting at one end of the table. So I guess, if we had a push door into that room, the plaque would say dining office. Or office room. Or dinoffice room.

Or maybe not.

Speaking of efficiency, I went to the grocery store after work yesterday, and as I was pushing my buggy down the drink aisle (as in pop, Lipton, and juice drinks, not beer, wine, and champagne in plastic bottles), I noticed a man making his way with his buggy towards the big, flap-covered doorway towards the back of the store.

Remember that doorway? It leads...where? And it has those big, black, rubber FLAPS as doors. They say the bathroom is back there, but who can be sure? It's the grocery store vortex, put there to scare young children and shoppers that really, really need to use the bathroom.

So anyway. Back to the business at hand. The man pushes his buggy real purposefully towards The Grocery Store Black Hole and sort of stalls out...moments later, a grocery store clerk bursts through the black, flappy door with three cases of bottled water stacked in his arms, up to his eyebrows. At which point the man goes: "Son, just put those right here in my buggy. They're goin' home with me."

The clerk looked a little surprised but piled 'em right in there next to the milk and tortilla chips. With a nod, the gentleman backed up his buggy and headed for greener pastures.

Please recycle your plastic water bottles, sir.

Thank you.

But all that is beside the point. Please take a look at this cutie!

"Hi, Mallory! Can I have some of your corn?"

When I see this picture of her sweet little smiling face, I can actually hear the echo of the cafeteria. I can hear trays clattering. I can hear lots of talking and hollering and clanking and noise. I can smell the square pieces of pizza laying next to kernel corn. I can taste the chocolate milk and smell the little round rolls, slightly burnt...

Dear Mallory,

Over the course of your school career, you will frequent the cafeterias of your schools no less than once a day - wait, that may not be true. I think I only walked in or through the cafeteria of the old high school your mama and I went to about six times, total. And that was just because of the baked potato bar. BAKED POTATO BAR!

The cafeteria will be the place you eat tray lunches, the place you eat sack lunches that your mother will lovingly pack for you, the place where you will purchase unhealthy snacks from the snack bar - like Cheese Swirls (or was it Twirls?) and ice cream and Funyuns - the place where you will have school concerts, the place where you will have school plays, the place where you will have holiday programs, the place where you'll occasionally listen to announcements, the place where you will take standardized tests, and - if your mother ever decides to work for the school system - the place where you will sit after school and wait for her, doing homework, eating snack machine snacks, talking to other "after-school-cafeteria-waiters," and laying your head down on the tables.

And then realizing that there was something sticky there.

And man...it's on your arm now....

Too Bad...

2011-05-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

...I can't crawl in there with her!

It's like she just can't take her own cuteness anymore....

Please excuse the grainy picture...her grandma took it months and months ago with her cell phone, when we were first getting her to nap in her crib. She's sleeping there like a 40-year-old woman just wiped out from all the housework, kids, and errands....

If I remember correctly, this nap MAYBE lasted 20 minutes. Guess it doesn't take this housewife long to recharge....

"George, hand me a pink lemonade and my bunny slippers...Mama needs a rest...."

Happiness is...

2011-05-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

...a baby in red and pink polk-a-dot pajamas.

...a baby with footie pajamas on.

...a baby with a teddy bear on the bottom flap of her pajamas.

...a baby all cozy in her crib.

...a baby smiling.

...a baby in the sunshine.

...this baby girl.

Come Again?

2011-05-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

"Hi! I'd like a bacon cheeseburger, well done, with fries on the side. Please hold all the veggies."

"Oh...all you have is oatmeal and prunes?"

[drums tiny, cute fingers in contemplation]

"Could I get a side of ketchup with that?"

What I Wanna Know

2011-05-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

How many hours of sleep do you get every night, and despite the amount, do you still wake up tired?

Do you still find yourself blinking every three seconds at your computer, downing caffeine, eating yourself awake, running into doorways, zoning out while driving, overdosing on Visine, and bemoaning to everyone you come in contact with: I'm soooooooo sleeeeeeeeeeeeepy! to the point of tiring of your own voice?

I don't do any of that.

Last night, for example, I went to bed about 10:00 and didn't wake up until 6:10 AM! Which is kind of late for me, considering everything I have to get done in the morning before leaving at 7:20 (a pipe dream) to get to work by 8:00.... But I was still so zonkered. Why? Well, I did wake up for about five minutes around midnight...and again around 3:30, because I thought I heard talking (that's not spooky at ALL)...and for sure at four-ish, when the baby cried out (many thanks and extra sugar in your tea, babe, for getting up with her!) - and of course I tried to stay awake until B came back to bed, just in case they needed me.

Seriously? They don't need me.

So, am I tired because of all the waking up? Is it because I'm not sleeping as soundly, since I'm listening for the baby?

Is it allergies or sinus pressure?

Is it because I actually need 14 hours of sleep every night to function? Or because my body is so used to zero sleep that I work better with less?

This conundrum is keeping me up at night.

Please don't tell me it's because I don't eat enough spinach or whole wheat stuffs.

Over and out.

About a Girl

2011-05-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Girl,

I've known you since we were awkward and learning...permed, frizzy hair (the both of us) and still getting used to how to move our longer limbs and bigger feet. We started as mere acquaintances then, but over the next TWENTY-THREE YEARS, we evolved into best friends, safety nets, roommates, support systems, cheerleaders, wives, mamas, and the kind of women girls who know who the other is from home.

We've definitely had our drama-mama moments, but we've always been kind to each other, remembering ourselves and forgiving easily. From my end, there has never been a grudge or a bitter thought. I think, mostly, it's because I see so much of myself in you, so it's a little like giving myself a break.
You forget all the bad and remember all the good.
Nothing phases you. Going to prom as a baby before all the rest of us didn't phase you, calculus never phased you, embarking on the big, huge, man-eating university didn't phase you, living on our own didn't phase you, and birthing babies didn't phase you. You said: bring it on, and Stacey? Just watch what I do...I'll show you how, and you'll be just fine.

You've been loyal and steadfast and funny and willing to do anything - or nothing at all - and you've always managed to remember me and make me feel like I really do matter. I think you might actually think I do.

You were always game for playing around and acting silly everywhere we went: we've worn do-rags (how do you spell that, for cryin' out loud?!), we've giggled at ridiculous stuff 'til I nearly wet my pants, we've annoyed everyone in a twelve-mile radius, and we've done homework together. I'll never forget sitting at the card table in your converted garage and doing math homework. We had two snacks: you taught me you've always gotta have a salty and a sweet. (which is why all weight gain is directly your fault) And the T.V. was on...you said you simply couldn't do any kind of homework without the T.V. playing in the background.

What else did you teach me about the T.V.? That if you're going to take a nap with it on, go ahead and turn it up loud, because if it's down low, you'll be so concentrated and focused on trying to hear it, you'll never go to sleep; your brain will be too busy.

You taught me that it's okay to act a fool. You taught me the theme song to Friends when it first came out. You taught me how to get cookie dough off the back of my truck in the middle of the night with a garden hose. You taught me how to talk, laugh, and play the flute, all at the same time - and sometimes while marching. (Yes...I just went there...BAND.)

There was that one time when we were riding down Market Street in your teensy, tiny, biscuit-colored toy truck, and we somehow managed to stuff two more people and 45 balloons in with us. And one balloon was the size of a small person. It got so crowded that we ended up opening the windows and letting the balloons out one-by-one...oh, to be following us around town.
I probably would have wanted to shoot our tires out from under us.

And then there was that one time when we drew that huge mural in chalk behind the movie theatre. HEATHENS, I tell you. HEATHENS.

Please, no one arrest us.

I won't even list all of the fun and rowdiness we had in college, because hey...important and impressive people read this, and I think we might BOTH be disowned.

The sight of you on that old couch eating olives directly out of the bottle will forever cause me to cringe...and then grin.

Remember when you called me on my cell phone from the next room to bring you Gatorade when you were sick and too dehydrated to get up? I drove to the gas station and bought you a slew of it...with no make-up, no hair, and pajama clothes on. That's love, my friend...that is love. 'Cause this sister doesn't go anywhere without some level of Primp.

It's better for humanity.

We've done all the mundane, rote, and ceremonious steps together, and I couldn't have picked a better companion. Please keep giggling and grinning at everything and absolutely nothing at all. Please keep talking to me with your words and your funny noises [bird], and please keep coming to see me and inviting me over and texting and picture mailing, because if you don't, I'm going to take that big, brown-eyed picture of you shoveling cheese dip into your mouth at my mama's house, and I'm going to put it on milk cartons everywhere.

Love,

The Girl That Will Never Forget Earnest P.

Misty, Muddy-Colored Memories

2011-05-03T08:01:00.000-07:00

So, the memory is definitely misty (we were poolside), but not nearly as muddy (this was less than two years ago).

And I know...Stacey poolside is like Stacey on a rocket ship.

This looks a little like a paparazzi photo. I can see the headlines now: COWBOY & INSIDE GIRL SPOTTED POOLSIDE, FULLY-CLOTHED & FRECKLING AD NAUSEUM.

Incidentally, per Webster's, ad nauseum means to a sickening and disgusting degree. Really. That's what it says.

Man. That's severe.

I ran across this picture of us in Arkansas at our nephew's first birthday party and couldn't quit staring at it. It wasn't even two years ago, but so much has changed since that photo was taken. We moved twice, Brady started and finished the fire academy, we got pregnant, we had a baby, and our brains exploded. We look so unsuspecting in this picture. We had no idea what was about to hit us.

If we had, I think this photo would have looked a little different. We'd probably both be curled up on lounge chairs, asleep, trying to bank as much as possible.

You say he did what?

2011-05-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

I love the sight of clean laundry, all nicely folded and ready to go.

And if it's tiny clothes for a teeny baby? Yah...even better.

But hold the phone...it's pink, too? Hurt me.

But wait!

Daddy washed it and folded it there, for his baby girl?

I'll be laying in a mushy puddle on the laundry room floor - right next to the muddy boots - if you need me.

A Picture Reel

2011-04-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

So, I guess this would illustrate the number one way NOT to strap your baby into a car seat and tote her all over Creation.

No fear! We only hauled her like this twice.

What?

She likes to feel the wind whipping in her hair.

Seriously...I guess I don't need to detail that my husband put her back there. We'd made a fairly early morning trip to church back in October to go over her Baptism details, and on the way out, he had to hunt for keys (we were driving my parents' vehicle for some reason), so he just..stowed her.

And look what else she gets from her mama! (besides her eyes and her thighs) That leg over the covers bit. It's like a little A/C when it's just a hair stuffy under that blanket. Just throw that leg out there, and everything feels ventilated.

Isn't it funny how parents (it's just me, isn't it?) see a little mannerism or movement in their baby and immediately use it as proof positive that YES, that is DEFINITELY my child! I do that! When, in fact, over half the population probably rockets their leg out the side of the bed sheet. But still. It's sweet, yes?

And she says, "What of it?"

In only the politest way, of course. Me thinks she might be slightly peeved at how her reddish-tinted hair seriously clashed with the orange trim of one of her Halloween outfits.

As you could see from the earlier Easter post, she no longer sports the red locks...she's careening more toward blonde at the moment. My prediction is that she'll land somewhere in the Land of Dishwater.

JUST LIKE HER MAMA!

She is definitely my child.

This will forever be one of my favorite pictures. I was in the process of decorating the Christmas tree (my first real tree experience!), and Daddy was entertaining the wee one. So, as George crooned us some Christmas-y lyrics, he started dancing with her, but she was a little small. It turned into swaying. She just stared and stared at him...and then went to sleep. He danced her right into dreamland....

There she is! Watching her purple and green "buddyflies." That's what I call them. She likes it.

Really. She does. She told me so.

I say, "Katie...where are your buddyflies?" And she leans forward and barely tips one on the wing, grinning, and the whole lot of 'em go spinning around.

She wasn't near leaning or tipping anything in this picture, though. She was so brand new and just stretching her limbs and soaking up some sweet sunshine in her bedroom. I love this picture. If only a horse had passed by the window at the right moment, I would think it wasn't real....

And if I remember correctly, she was rockin' Metallica's Lullaby CD during this repose.

And just in case the sweetness hasn't eaten you alive yet, there's the blessed sight of a baby sleeping, all wrapped in a soft little blanket. Bliss.

Never wake a sleeping baby.

Thank you.

And just in case this post paints babies as all rainbows, fairies, and chocolate dip cones, get a gander at this:

Is that pretty, or what? I mean, I think that is just really good-lookin'. My legs aren't really that white, by the way. The camera must have washed out my tan.

I'm frightened just looking at it.

IT happens to be a snap of my nearly full-term calves, ankles, feet, and toes, propped up on a bolt of leather (what else?), in the cramped backseat of the hemi, right after a good friend's wedding. My thinking was that the elevation would help matters before we descended upon the reception.

I was wrong.

Nothing helped.

Nothing but giving birth, that is.

One Sentence

2011-04-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

"True stories, told in one sentence."

That's what the website says about One Sentence. I've been following this blog for a while, and I've never once gotten bored with it. I'm always happy to see new posts. And hey...it's a quick read.

Everything is just...you know...one sentence.

Some of them are funny:

"When he told his four-year-old daughter that the doctor just needed to look at her eyes to make sure they were okay, she whispered, 'Will he put them back in when he's done looking at them?'"

Some are sad:

"One of the saddest things I've ever heard is when my mother said, 'I always wished I could have been just a little bit pretty.'"

And then there's love:

"Meeting him in calculus taught me to love math."

And in honor of Mother's Day:

"As my mom drove away, after backing into the corner of our fenced in yard with our 15-passenger van, she yelled at us, 'FIX THE FENCE!'"

Happy Easter

2011-04-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

Could you eat her up with a spoon, or what??? My sister took this picture on Great-Grandma's front porch Easter Sunday. I'm very grateful for all the shots she gets with her camera and her cell phone...times when I'm too tired or not thinking or busy keeping the baby off the edge of the nearest cliff.

Those pink cheeks, blue eyes, blonde hair, and the expression on that mouth...this is going to be trouble. She's just so sweet and easygoing and cooperative. She spent the longest time just sitting in my lap in the swing on the porch, playing with a plastic cup and watching her cousins hunt Easter eggs. Always so busy soaking up the world....

Speaking of soaking up the world, she got a big ol' dose yesterday evening. After I got home from work, B took us both for a jeep ride in the pasture to check the cows. He's got this new old army jeep that he's fixing up for farm use. Once K's pink beach hat was strapped in place, we were both boosted up into the "passenger seat." Otherwise known as a piece of plywood balanced on the metal bars where the seat is supposed to go. It's a good thing I'm so acrobatic.

Alrighty then.

Alas, have no fear: he went slow enough for us to pick blades of grass as we drove by, if we so desired. And the ride was smooth as my legs after two weeks of razor strike.

During the entire field trip, Baby faced me and just snuggled up under my neck, looking out at the scenery and smiling, happy as she wanted to be.

I was sure the loud motor of the jeep or the bumpy ride would scare her a little, but no. She always surprises me.

B and I are already picturing her, a few years from now, freckled, pig-tailed, and riding her pony all over the place. Doesn't that paint a really heavenly scene?

I think so...but then I have heart failure, imagining her riding a pony all by herself, too fast, across the craggy terrain of the pasture in the middle of bulls and protective mama cows and hidden snakes and sharp rocks tucked between the grass and dangerously close to barbed wire fencing and within throwing distance of pirate ships and wookies (What's a wookie?) and two steps from Nessie and ENTIRELY too friendly with Big Foot and ....

Circa 2008: Oakwood Street

2011-04-27T06:22:00.000-07:00

Here we see L and Sugar having a deep and meaningful conversation. The location: the Oakwood house.

I find myself longing for those days a little bit. The days when I would zoom home from work, get there in 25 minutes, and then race myself to put on pajama clothes, put my hair in a ponytail, get a snack, and sit down on the couch, remote in hand. Which slowly turned into leaning on the couch, remote in hand. Which slowly turned into laying on the couch, remote in hand....

I didn't fully appreciate the ability to completely zone out and relax. The ability to eat ice cream with abandon, to nap with my cats, to take long baths, to go find B - wherever he was - and hang out, to stay up late if I felt like it, because, hey...the weekend would be here soon, and I could sleep in!

Everything is a little different now, and I feel guilty for reminiscing so fondly over those days. I may have lost that little bit of freedom, but I've gained so much more.

I try to ease the guilt by reminding myself that I'm just exhausted; that I'm so very sleepy. That if I could just refuel for a little bit, I'd feel so much better....

There are plenty of people who would be happy to step in and take over long enough for Mama to take a big, fat nap, but here's the thing: I can't bear to leave the baby for that long. I don't want to.

This reminds me of an episode I saw when I was *young* of The Cosby Show. Sandra had newborn twins, and her mother and her mother-in-law came over to their apartment to take the babies, so that she could rest...she was sick and exhausted and everything else. They were trying to help, and her husband thought it was a great idea. When Sandra realized they were gone, she went ape. She hunted the babies and the "kidnappers" down at her parents' house and went nuts. She looked absolutely crazed in her sloppy clothes, hair standing on end, and a breathing mask on her face. I thought that was such a ridiculous episode.

Now? Not so much.

Dear Diary,

2011-04-26T07:07:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling uninspired and asleep. I think maybe this would help:

Today, I'm grateful for...

2011-04-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

...the dark skies that look like storms.
...being one box shy of being completely unpacked!
...Brady being home for five days.
...my baby laying her head on my shoulder.
...a fridge full of leftover pizza.
...a fridge full of leftover soda.
...my healthy eating habits.
...kitties that like to help you study:

Kiva

2011-04-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

Gulmira Ismayilova lives in the Khaladj village in the Salyan region of Azerbaijan, Asia. (Please don't ask me to pronounce that last sentence outloud...I just can't do it.) This is a picture of her daughter. Gulmira and her daughter run their own farming business and needed a plot of land to improve the business. The plot of land cost $1,200.

I only donated $25 to Gulmira's plot of land, but even at that small amount, she raised her $1,200 within 16 days through Kiva. She repaid the loan in full in exactly 16 months.

I'm sure many of you have heard of Kiva, but I wanted to showcase it a little here. I love it. Since I can't very well trip on over to Asia to hand a woman a stash of cash to aid in the improvement of her situation, this is the next best thing. I can see pictures of the people getting the loan, I can see pictures of their businesses and where the money is going, and I can celebrate with them when they pay it all back. What an accomplishment for everyone.

And then, it's time to recycle the money and loan again. My measly little $25 - which I could have used to pay a water bill, to buy four cans of formula, or to put just enough gas in the truck for one trip to work and back - can help not one, but dozens of others.

That feels pretty stinkin' good.

This is what the website says about them:

"Why we do what we do

We envision a world where all people - even in the most remote areas of the globe - hold the power to create opportunity for themselves and others. We believe providing safe, affordable access to capital to those in need helps people create better lives for themselves and their families."

This is where I have to admit that I did not discover Kiva on my own, nor did I go looking for a way to donate money to a female farmer on the other side of the world, because I felt so inclined. No, I saw it on Oprah. Yes, I know. But hey...it got me all kinds of inspired...back in 2007. Four years later, I'm still on board and still rotating that same $25!

Quote of the Day

2011-04-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

"Did you know that Barbie & Ken broke up?! Back in 2004!"

"Does he work in Accounting?"

"But they got back together on Valentine's Day."

"I don't think I know him...was he at the Christmas party?"

~ Overheard in the cereal aisle of Brookshire Brothers while picking up a box of Frosted Flakes on sale for $1.04.

It's Been a Year

2011-04-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

There she is, washing her hands in her kitchen. The kitchen where I now wash dishes and bottles...where we stand and point out the window at the stud horse for Katie...where we warm bottles and stand to eat food, because we're fancy like that.

The kitchen may look different, and she may not be standing there anymore, but I think of her at home all the time. Sometimes, when the windows are open and the air blows through the bedroom, I can still smell the smell of her and Grandpa.

Friends

2011-04-18T06:58:00.000-07:00

Some have four legs, some have two.

The Fix-Up

2011-04-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

And I don't mean Cupid-style!

Sometime over a year ago, my generous parents started the project of fixing up my grandparents' little farmhouse for my family to live in once Brady started the fire academy. This meant I'd be close to my parents while pregnant and while Brady was gone every week at the academy, and I'd have help once the baby arrived. So I've come full circle...I started my life out in the country, and here I am, once again. And it makes me really happy. I'm more at home out in the middle of nothing in a way that I have never been in town. I've had the opportunity of enjoying the conveniences of "big" city life while in college and during my first jobs, but I always knew it wasn't where I'd want to stay. The country is home.

I like going outside in my pajamas at any time of day or night...I like living with the windows wide open all day, every day...I like seeing our horses, cats, and cows from every window.

This picture shows about as much of the work I did to help, save painting for a couple of days. And there's a baby hidden under that gigantic jacket somewhere! Most of my help came in the form of lounging on my parents' couch, swollen feet propped up on their coffee table, and calling and texting back and forth: What are y'all doing now? How does it look? Do you need more paint? Anybody need a drink?

In this picture, I'm sanding kitchen cabinet doors. I hope to post some before and after pictures soon....

Naming of the Babe

2011-04-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

I think it's only natural that, when you fall in love, you start to imagine your future life with that cowboy. When I thought of babies I'd have in the far, distant future, I even conjured up names. It's only natural. I knew that, if we had a girl (we never found out the sex of the baby while pregnant), I wanted her middle name to be Jane, after my mama's middle name. Jane is of Hebrew origin and means God is gracious. I've always liked it...it's cute, it's sweet, it feels like home, and it would tie her to her family.

Katie, however, is not what I had in mind for her first name, nor what Husband and I had discussed. A few weeks before her arrival, he told me that he thought we should name a girl Katie. Talk about coming out of left field...this was never on our radar. For so long, we discussed the names we liked, so it was hard to completely shift gears; it was a little bit like getting to know her all over again.... But he had his reasons, and I've learned that when he's adamant about something, it's always a good idea to go along. I'm never disappointed. It actually worked for my family history, too: my maternal great-grandma's name was Katy. Spelled differently, but still special.

Husband loves the name...ever since he first saw McClintock, our favorite John Wayne movie. Although he saw it a long time before I did and has watched it many, many more times. John Wayne's wife in the movie is named Kathryn and affectionately referred to as Katie, much to her chagrin. I'll have to do a post on this movie some other time...it's quite entertaining.

If you like that sort of thing.

And to top off his love of all things Katie, one of his favorite songs from Jerry Jeff (we're on a first and middle name basis, yah?):

"It's two eggs up on whisky toast
Home fries on the side
Wash 'em down with the road house coffee
That burns up your insides

Just a Canyon, Colorado diner
And a waitress I did love
We sat in the back 'neath an old stuffed bear
And a worn out Navajo rug

Aye-yi-yi Katie
Shades of red and blue
Aye-yi-yi Katie
Whatever became of the Navajo rug and you

Well, old Jack the boss, he left at six
And it's Katie bar the door
She pulled down that Navajo rug
And we spread it 'cross the floor

I saw lightning frame the Sacred Mountains
Saw the wooing of a turtle dove
Just lying next to Katie
On that old Navajo rug

Aye-yi-yi Katie
Shades of red and blue
Aye-yi-yi Katie
Whatever became of the Navajo rug and you

Well, I saw old Jack about a year ago
He said the place burned to the ground
All he'd saved was an old bear tooth
And Katie, she left town

Well Katie got a souvenir, too
Jack smiled as he spit out a big old plug
Well, you should have seen her comin' through the smoke
She was draggin' that Navajo rug

Aye-yi-yi Katie
Shades of red and blue
Aye-yi-yi Katie
Whatever became of the Navajo rug and you

So everytime I cross the Sacred Mountains
And lightning jumps above
It always takes me back in time
To my long lost Katie love

You know, everything keeps on a-movin'
Everybody's on the go
You don't find things that last anymore
Like a hand-woven Navajo"

When we first started dating, he started singing this song to me, but he'd replace the Katie with Stacey. The sound of Jerry Jeff Walker is all happy memories, easy times, and fun days. So now, when la princessa gets perturbed, we sing this song to her...sometimes together...and I think she likes it.

Or MAYbe she's smart enough to know that, if she gets real sweet on us, we'll stop singing and kiss her cheeks and say who's-my-baby-girl and STOP SINGING.

Animals

2011-04-08T14:54:00.001-07:00

This is the horse that bucked me.

She'd be beautifully perfect, if it weren't for that one, tiny thing.

This Wednesday will mark the third anniversary of that day.

We haven't made up yet, her and me, but that's mostly my fault.

She's with child right now...due any day.

My goal is to get back on her before Baby Girl knows the difference.

I'll let you know how it goes.

To Maryland, With Love

2011-04-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Maryland,

Where did you go, George?

Love,
Texas

Oatmeal Facials

2011-04-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

I hear they're all the rage, which explains why Baby Girl has the sweetest baby cheeks ever.

Her daddy sent me this picture the other morning, while he was feeding her breakfast. I felt such a rush of happiness when I got it...happy that he has a schedule that allows him to stay with her when her grandma can't...happy that it was a sunny day...happy that she was getting to lounge in her pajamas...happy that she was having a good time with her daddy...happy that she was eating so well (she gets that from her mother)....

The caption on the picture said: There is oatmeal everywhere.

How is it that there always seems to be more oatmeal everywhere when Daddy is behind the cup? Not sure...but what I am sure of is that everything is different and more fun when Daddy gets his turn.

Last weekend, B got up with the baby, so that I could sleep in...this meant he fed her breakfast. When I walked into the kitchen, I saw that the highchair was over by the dining room window, facing the great outdoors. He said that she loved watching everything going on outside...the leaves blowing in the wind, the sun shining, the cats playing, the new baby colt running, the blue-eyed mare....

I imagine she did; I always feed her in the kitchen. Why didn't I think of that?

Over the course of the same weekend, we had all of the windows open in the house, enjoying the spring breeze. Whenever I open the big double windows in our room, I always pull the curtains all the way back, so that I can see the view. This particular day, however, B opened the windows, but he left those curtains closed. They spent the entire weekend dancing in the wind and making this gentle swooshing sound as they moved...the baby was mesmerized by it, and I was lulled by the sound.

It was so pretty. I think I may be adopting this habit from now on...why did this never occur to me?

Last week, a true friend brought me a half gallon of that new BlueBell flavor, HomeMade in the Shade. That very night, I ate ice cream for supper, since B was at the station. It was scrumdillyicious.

Ice cream for supper is fantastic...I think this is something else I'll be adopting from now on. Why this didn't dawn on me sooner, I sure don't know.

Cue the Screaming

2011-04-05T08:03:00.000-07:00

Do you see this cup?

I assume you do, unless you have your eyes closed.

It says "Stacey + 1" on there...that's when I was still pregnant with Katie Jane. Sweet, yes? At the in-laws, we always use these red Solo cups with our names on them for holidays and such. It works very well.

You wanna know in what other capacity they work well?

Spider-catching.

(And I just got a creepy chill up my spine...there will be no pictures accompanying this part of the post if I have any intention of finishing it.)

I do not like spiders. I would rather see snakes, lizards, alligators, lions, tigers, and bears - all together, riding in a truck, bed full of pecan and peanut-encrusted brownies for them to force-feed me - than spiders. Spiders cause me to freeze. Spiders send terror through me. And if I'm alone, I'm in trouble. I cannot get too close to them, or touch them through a tissue to kill them, or smash them all over the place, because then I'd just have to touch them through a tissue to clean them up. I do not, as a result of this, however, close my eyes and wish them away or run into the next room or just LEAVE. Um, negatory. If I did that, then I wouldn't know where they hid. They could scuttle off behind or under something that I may likely touch in the future. No thanks.

I need to know where they are. I need to know that they will not be moving before my husband or mom or ANYONE comes home to kill them dead.

So I just put a cup over them.

Or a bowl. Or a plate. Or a toothbrush holder. Or anything that could serve as an entrapment device. But red Solo cups work REALLY well for this. For starters, they're red, so you notice them immediately. And anyone that's ever lived with me for more than an hour knows that, if they happen across something turned upside down where it normally isn't, there's likely a spider underneath...or something that very strongly resembles a spider. This has been going on for decades.

Which is why it's no surprise that I almost drove my truck into a ditch the other day. I came around a curve on our quaint little farm-to-market road, and behold:

Well, it wasn't this cup, but there was a red Solo cup - UPSIDE DOWN - sitting in the middle of the road. And my brain goes: SPIDER!!!!

I gave the cup a wide berth.

Because you just never know.

Family

2011-04-04T06:29:00.000-07:00

They'll get all gussied up for your wedding.

Even though they'd rather be wearing jeans.

The Three-Month TaDo TaDa

2011-04-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

One has to wonder: is she truly just interested in showing off all the tongue she owns, or is she making a farce of this whole picture-taking charade?

There it is again. Stinker. Look at those little hands gripping our fingers.

Obviously, she's just having that much fun!

The whole ordeal was mostly painless and quick. I had so much anxiety over the session...it was our first big outing with her, where I had to pack to be gone for a while, other than doctor visits. (Yes, my baby is sheltered. More on that in a moment.) Since the beginning, I have always been so nervous that she would cry a lot if we went anywhere, and I wouldn't be able to soothe her. It ended up being a waste of energy - imagine that - but it was just one of those things I had to get over...otherwise, we'd still be sitting in our living room, rooted into the leather.

But she did great! And I didn't pass out or freak out all over the backdrop. Although she didn't much care for the part where she had to lose the diaper. Little Miss Modesty. And then Mama ended up with wet jeans. Oh well. They've seen worse (all Gap jeans circa 2002-ish), and all the pictures were from the waist up...yay!

I kept asking B if he was tickling her in that last picture to get her to laugh so big, but he says no.

Happy baby.

And on the subject of that last picture...is his hand huge, or what? I have a dear friend that once said his hand was big enough to rival one of those foam fingers at a sporting event. That had me donkey braying for a good ten minutes.

Love those strong, hard-working hands!

And so a little commentary on how sheltered our sweet girl is: We went to Arkansas to visit family last weekend, and at one point, I was standing at the kitchen sink, with her on my hip. The window above the sink faces the street, and cars were driving by pretty quickly. Her eyes got huge, and all she could do was stare back and forth at them. I pointed this out to B, so he took her outside for a closer look.

He - nor her uncle - could believe we had to bring our country baby to Arkansas, of all places, to get a gander at traffic.

Texas

2011-03-31T06:30:00.000-07:00

"Horses make a landscape look beautiful."

~ Alice Walker

Horse Carousel

2011-03-30T06:32:00.000-07:00

What a view. I know the quality of this picture is less than poor, but it's from a cell phone. A very old cell phone, in fact. Probably the first strain that actually took pictures! One day, I'll probably regret that most of the pictures we have are from cell phones, but they're just so convenient and easy. On second thought, I don't think I'll regret it at all. I think I'll just be glad to have the images in the first place.

B sent this picture to me one day while I was at work. It caused me physical pain. I wanted to leave and head for Piedmont immediately. I wanted to watch, to lay in the grass, to sit on the truck bed and read or color, to nap outside, to walk around, to float in the pond, to follow him around, to soak up sunshine....

Instead, I just looked at this picture every half hour or so. He was out in Piedmont, training horses, exercising horses, schooling horses, and having the time of his life. Just like he does every time he's in Piedmont, every time he's working with a horse, and every time he's not cooped up indoors.

These horses are all star pupils, apparently. They're all standing quietly and still, waiting for instruction...nary a one is pawing the ground or setting back...all good news. They all seem to be content enjoying the shade of my swing tree.

Lucky equines.

It's Not Our Anniversary

2011-03-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

It's not his birthday, either. Or mine, for that matter.

It's Tuesday.

He's at the station, Katie is with her grandma, the money is tight, the projects at the farm and in Piedmont are still there, and it might rain.

But isn't he cute?

I love that he's a cowboy.
I love that he likes to eat waffles in the morning.
I love that he's a fireman.
I love that he calls the baby Tootie.
I love that, in his opinion, everything is always great.
I love that he works hard all the time.
I love that he chews gum while he drives.
I love that he loves animals.
I love that he makes grilled cheese and scrambled eggs for a snack.
I love that he likes everybody. Really.
I love that he says "Hey Girl!" in a rogue-ish voice when he sees me.
I love that he trains and rides horses as easily as I'm typing this.
I love that he'll be home tomorrow morning.
I love that his name is Brady.

And now, for something a little less sappy: BlueBell is going to be rolling out a new flavor April 1st, and I'm going to be STANDING. IN. LINE! Homemade in the Shade. Vanilla with chocolate syrup ALREADY IN IT. Those are lovely words, my friends. Lovely words....

What I Wore Wednesday...

2011-03-28T06:56:00.000-07:00

...or Monday, makes no matter.

I see the What I Wore Wednesday posts on blogs, and I can't help it: I automatically look down to see what I'm wearing. I would never be brave enough to post pictures of myself, but after hearing in my head how the description of the outfit sounds, I would maybe have to, just to convince whomever is reading (and myself) that I don't look quite as ragamuffin as I sound.

At least, I hope not.

And if I do...Someone, speak up!

Take today, for example: shoes are black flats from Payless, bought when pregnant with Katie, when comfort for work became necessary...no more heels or slides at that point; dress pants (Mama would call 'em SLACKS.) are from Express, actually quite nice...bought, lemme count now...SEVEN YEARS AGO; 3/4 length sleeved plum shirt is from a birthday gift card, and right before I started typing, I pulled a loose string on the sleeve, and I am now unraveling.

And I haven't checked a mirror yet, but here's betting there's something on me somewhere from lunch....

To Add to Her Resume

2011-03-24T07:02:00.000-07:00

This is an old picture, but I'm trying to squeeze in as many of my favorites as possible, for posterity. I love the expression on her face in this picture...I also love how her feet look like her socks are stuffed full of marbles - or rocks? or potatoes? or cotton balls? - they look huge! I'm guessing that comes from pulling your socks off no less than five thousand times in five minutes and stretching out the socks within an inch of their life. I believe she was going in for the five thousandth and first (thousandth?) tug as this picture was snapped.

She still spends a little time in this bouncy seat, although it's been relocated to our bedroom. She sits (yah, right) in it while I fix the bed. Then, she gets moved over to the bed for maximum movement opportunities while Mama gets dressed for work. Letting her roam free on the bed while I get dressed is a little bit like playing air hockey with myself while I try to get dressed.

I try to set her on her bottom. She stiffens up, so she can stand. At which point she looks towards the mirror and grins enough for all of Texas; so pleased with herself. So we stand there looking at each other and in the mirror for a few minutes. I finally coax her into a sitting position, and she sits there sweetly, just long enough for me to make it to the closet and turn around. As I reach for dress pants and a shirt, I turn around and see she is trying to crawl...on all fours, rocking back and forth.

When this doesn't immediately work, she just flops over and starts rolling all around. First, to my side. I rush over to block her getting too close to the edge. She looks up and smiles and grabs her feet, like she's done. I go back to the closet for shoes. I turn around, and she maneuvering to Brady's side. I rush over to block her getting too close to the edge. She looks up and smiles and grabs her feet, like she's done. This continues up until I've finished dressing; me darting from one side of the bed to the other.

And that is my daily workout. The end.

When she's in the bouncy seat, she's got all kinds of tricks. As soon as I get her in it, she immediately lunges forward, so that the "harness" will be loose on her when I'm done. Just like a horse you're trying to saddle...suckin' in air, so that the belly is big and full when the saddle's being adjusted...helps keep it nice and roomy for later.

Once she's in there, she can reach far enough to hit all of the controls on the front...she can change the bouncing speed, the radio station, or turn it off all together. She's quite the contortionist.

I fear she's on the precipice of being done with this piece of baby furniture. Which means I'll have to find a place to store it.

Wonder if the cats would enjoy it?

A Mirror Image

2011-03-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

This is the kind of picture that makes an uncle proud: cowboy hat, Coke can, what looks like Reese's, and a smile.

If it's not Reese's, Little Man, don't tell us...just keep that to yourself. Because with the Reese's, you and your Uncle B are basically interchangeable in this picture.

Except for the whole highchair thing...but why split hairs.

What I Wanna Know

2011-03-16T06:34:00.000-07:00

Do you take naps? If you do, are they catnaps or full-on drool fests?

I take a lot of naps. A lot of catnaps. I've become quite proficient at the 20-minute sleep. If I have spare time during my lunch hour? Catnap. (relax...not at my desk!) If I'm home with the baby on the weekends and she's napping? Catnap. If I get to take a bath at night? Catnap. If the alarm goes off, but it's still kind of early, and the baby isn't up yet? Catnap. (I like to call this catnapping, not hitting the snooze button.) If we're driving somewhere and the baby is asleep in the car seat? Catnap. (only when I'm being chauffeured, of course)

What would really feel good, however, would be to give myself over to the snore and nap for a good three, four hours...at least. I can imagine crawling into the bed, with the cool sheets, windows wide open, and a silent house. My house would have to be emptied of all life. Ever since K's birth, every little thing wakes me up: the sound of the refrigerator door closing, the click of the back door, the sound of someone turning the bathroom light on, the pantry door opening, B breathing too loudly, the cats dreaming...you get the idea.

I think I just accidentally fell asleep for a second, thinking about those cool, aqua-colored sheets....

About a Girl

2011-03-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

I know I'm always talking about this one girl on this blog by name, so I thought maybe she needed an About a Girl post. Although, since I've already referred to her by name directly a ton of times, I may as well post a picture and her name, right? Well, that's what I thought, but I'll refrain; I'll try to have self control.

Dear Girl,

I'm sure you'll recognize yourself right away, but I can only start by saying I'm so happy we've trailed each other through school and all through our working careers. Every job and job move has seemed easier and more fun, because of you.

No one understands better the feelings I have of what could have been, what should have been, why it wasn't, and why that's the absolute perfection I wanted.

I remember the first time I saw you...I think. It was either in a Blinn history class or Spanish...and good thing I was wearing that Beastie Boys t-shirt, or you may have never spoken to me...but I think it was Mr. C.'s history class. You and your then boyfriend, now husband, forever friend, were sitting back in the corner. And you had the curliest. hair. I had ever seen. up close. And so blonde! You had a blonde aura. And you were about as pale as me, so I felt an instant kinship.

"I bet she knows all about sunscreen, blistering, and turning red just from walking from one building to the next!"

Incidentally, this will be the first summer that I've had such dark window tint on my windows, so I'm hoping to avoid arm sunburn just from driving around doing errands on my lunch break. Here's hoping.... The freckles are absolutely running amuck around this joint.

So back to Girl. You're always seemingly quiet and sweet and smiling slightly...unless Mogen David or my sister is invited to the party, and then you can get quite silly. And oh the laughing. You've also got quite a little temper mixed in with all those blonde curls, so word to the wise: don't mess with this Girl. She means business.

I love how your baby has the same blonde curls. She is carrying on the legacy, even though yours are all wrangled under the flat iron.

I love how you, your family, and even your in-laws make me feel like one of the pack.

I also love how you feel the need to feed me every chance you get. And I eat it all voraciously, like the little garbage disposal I can be. The fact that we are both picky eaters in our own right makes this so much easier. I can only imagine if you tried to bring me something full of nuts or decorated with greenery. Gagging is not something anyone can carry off gracefully. Believe me...I've tried; I know.

Every year that passes, I feel like I get to know a little more about your likes, dislikes, quirks, and thoughts. You're always up on the latest fashions and like to look nice, but if you had your druthers, you'd probably cruise all over in those blasted basketball shorts. Deep down, you're just a little country girl who wants to take a nap...this is why I relate to you SO WELL.

You take comfort in the things surrounding you - books you read part of, books you plan to read, candy to share with everybody else, pictures of your family and friends, toys and keepsakes for your baby, your puppies, your new feline, that tote bag - and like to keep your comfort pieces close and unchanging. As I type, I'm realizing it also brings me comfort to know and see all the same things around and with you.

P.S. I hate change. Surprise!

I also love how we both connect over geekiness and somewhat mourn the loss of school and homework. Somewhat. You do all the number puzzles, I'll do all the words and letters, you come back and fix what I missed, and we'll rule the world.

Another perk is that you're always one step ahead. You got married first, you had your baby first, you're having your second baby first, and a whole slew of other things. It's nice to be able to watch, celebrate with you, and then have you walk me through everything when my turn comes along. I hope to be the same help to another friend that I may be one step ahead of...although I might have to befriend a teenager to accomplish this....

So much more I could say, but let's just leave it at: Please pass the ketchup.

Love,
Gloria Llamas Obregon

Misty, Muddy-Colored Memories

2011-03-08T06:35:00.000-08:00

So many things are flying at me from the core of this picture. I'm not sure where to start...the homemade Cabbage Patch dolls, the plethora of stuffed animals and dolls I can't seem to part with, the gold garland, the construction paper ornaments, the very shiny hair, the dramatic and soulful look I'm sharing with the camera (What is the deal, kid?!), or the footie pajamas. I know you can't see the feet, but trust me: FOOTIE PAJAMAS.

My entire childhood, I think I assumed that many Cabbage Patch dolls looked just like ours. I was way past the time of affectionately toting mine around before I realized that this was not run of the mill, but please notice how their features are set to match ours exactly. Well, as exactly as yarn comes, anyway. On our summer vacations to Colorado, these girls rode along. They were even seat belted into the third seat of the suburban...hello! Safety first! They wore our old baby clothes, sat in our laps, and called us Ma. Mine did, anyway.

Does anyone recognize the crying baby doll that's sliding out of my lap? Mouth wide open, ready to bawl if you lean her back just far enough. Pick her up...she stops. JUST LIKE REAL LIFE! She looks a little perturbed in this picture...she's all runnin' out of room and wishin' Care Bear would shove over, for cryin' out loud. Sister, on the other hand, goes for simplicity. Just one doll, thanks. Over and out. That's all I need. Well, that...and a thumb. Because it's cute.

Raise your hands, please, if you call the gold stuff on the tree tinsel. Oh, only one hand went up...Laura's? Ah. That's because it's called GARLAND, sweetie. GAR.LAND. Tinsel is silvery and wispy and supposed to look like I don't know what...icicles? Dripping rain or snow? The fluff pictured here that leaves gold, sparkly trails all over your shag carpeting is garland.

I wonder which Christmas this was? The one with the dollhouse? The one with the almost Barbie Dream House? The one with the beanbag chairs? The one with the bikes with some other girls' name on them? Who knows...but I'm sure it was happy. All the Christmases were happy and fun...shiny, bowl-cut hair and all. (It's possible that the part separating my bangs from the rest of my hair started right below my shoulder blades, but I'm not real sure.)

Here a Chick, There a Chick...

2011-03-07T06:48:00.000-08:00

...Everywhere a Chick Chick....

This old picture from my cell phone reminds me of when we had our chickens. (Obviously.) I guess it also reminds me of when we lived in town like true "city folk," but it mostly just reminds me of the chickens.

Does it seem odd to anyone else that we had the farm lifestyle with chickens and eggs while living in town? That's how we roll.

Backwards.

I kind of miss the old brood. Look at all those eggs! I never had to buy eggs. We were always well-stocked. I can't wait until we have chickens again at the farm. The farm has been lacking in chickens for far too long!

B's great uncle was the facilitator of the chicken wave around our house. He, too, has a love for chickens...and chicken magazines, as a matter of fact. That's how it started: "Here...take this magazine to read." Before I knew it, there were magazines with pictures of Rhode Island Reds and baby chicks on the covers strewn from the bathroom (ahem...tub reading, people!) to the living room coffee table to the desk in the kitchen. (And may I weigh in that I much prefer happening upon magazines with a rooster on the front as opposed to Angelina Jolie or some other statue? It did wonders for my self esteem. Thank you.) I thought it was all innocent reading and cultivating a shared interest with a beloved uncle.

I. Was. Wrong.

And I so should have known better. I've only known this man for six hundred years...ever since we both walked the playgrounds as babes.

Before long, there was a hot box in our garage for the chicks. Then, there was a bag of mush or feed or something in the laundry room. Then, a heat lamp appeared, borrowed from his dad's shop. And somewhere in the middle of all this setting up, feathers began to fly, dogs began to bark, and we officially hillbillied the neighborhood.

Uncle was happy, B was excited, and I pretended not to see them. Until the eggs started showing up in the fridge. Then? I named them.

Just don't tell B how much I miss the chickens and the sound of their clucking filling the background and all the eggs...I'll be so excited about having them again, but if he finds out I miss them, we'll have them TOMORROW. And tomorrow is a touch too soon. The carpet's not down in the chicken coop, the storm door still doesn't stay closed, and I'm sure I'll come home one day to find that the birds have used the wood scraps on the front porch to construct The Biggest Birdhouse Evah. Suffice it to say: we're not quite ready.

We're barely ready for the horses and the barn cats that already live with us. Wouldn't it be swell if they could provide food for the family like the chickens did? And I don't mean mice, thanks. I mean...I don't know...pancakes? Bread? Bacon? Wait...that would be pigs. I hope B didn't hear that.

I think I'll let the horses know when I get home that they're in charge from this point forward of bread...white or wheat, I don't much care. They can leave the loaf on the back stoop, or I'll gladly come out and get it. And the barn cats are in charge of condiments...I don't care how. Ketchup, mustard, jam, jelly, A-1...you get the idea. I can picture Bossy now, rollin' a jar of Miracle Whip our way....

Aaron Belfer

2011-03-03T09:10:00.000-08:00

Wow.

Has anyone read her blog? She writes for City Beat in California: www.aarynbelfer.com.

I've been following her writing for a while now. She is definitely not for the faint of heart. She's a little randy and a little...mad. She gets passionate about politics and everything going on in the world. I think I learn more about what's going on in this world from her than I do from the news. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

I'm not even 100% sure that I agree with everything she says; I think it's more that I'm just glad to hear someone caring so much. Someone with an open mind..and mouth. [said with a grin]

She's definitely funny and entertaining and loud. And I like her.

Here's Hoping

2011-03-02T06:28:00.000-08:00

Here's hoping that Peanut Merrylegs from The Wal-Mart (Hi, Sweet Avery!) has the wherewithal to survive the antics of this Montana cowboy:

And Jess, I've left your name off, so that no one will know the name of the man responsible for terrorizing my baby's pony.

A Thank You

2011-03-01T06:25:00.000-08:00

* for retiring *

* for coming to our home to take care of our baby girl *

* for washing my dishes *

* for helping me with laundry *

* for taking such good care of KJB *

* for being happy about it *

* for spoiling us to no end *

* for sitting next to this rockin' tile wall at Casa Ole *

Dear Diary,

2011-02-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

It's supposed to be really beautiful outside again today. I'm so excited for spring. I can hardly stand it! I told the baby this morning over breakfast that spring is coming, which means she'll soon get to nap in her diaper only, play in the pack n play on the front porch, experience open doors and windows at all times, and go for long stroller rides. Of course, this also means she gets to wear her first pair of work gloves, slather on sunscreen for the first time, and work outside in the sun under Daddy's direction for the first time. She looked really excited.

Love,

Today, I'm grateful for...

2011-02-25T06:34:00.000-08:00

...the Coke and animal crackers in my desk drawer.

...pictures from our honeymoon to Montana.

...field trips.

...better radio reception in my office.

...the sunshine this morning.

...babies who take long naps.

...Fruity Pebbles (and the food theme prevails once again).

...texting that lets me "talk" to B throughout his shift.

...the smell of my leather planner.

...our pied-a-terre.

...cursive handwriting.

...space heaters.

...Jesus statues on mountains:

Quote of the Day

2011-02-24T07:03:00.000-08:00

"This is the only job I've had where I've had to bring my own toilet paper."

~ Overheard from a grandma entering the house of Oops I Forgot to Buy That.

Friends

2011-02-23T08:03:00.000-08:00

He's my best one.

* taken 2 days after our wedding *

Just Below the Mustard

2011-02-22T08:31:00.000-08:00

Wine, baby bottles, and vials of horse blood...does everyone have this shelf in the door of their refrigerator?

Animals

2011-02-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

This picture amuses me to no end.

I don't know if Floyd's head truly is that big, or if it's the camera angle.

That's B back there, taming the "beast."

The Bread & The Sugar: They Call My Name

2011-02-18T10:40:00.000-08:00

There are leftover kolaches and donuts.

Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on how you look at it - I am not averse to leftovers.

This may not end well.

To Maryland, With Love

2011-02-17T08:52:00.000-08:00

Dear Maryland,

I have to confess to someone: a rep brought Shipley's donuts and kolaches for us this morning. They were still hot. I have consumed more than my share already, and I will probably be skipping my home-packed lunch in favor of MORE DONUTS AND KOLACHES.

Please send help.

Love,

Texas