LOVE this artist

This is A F Norling, a New England mixed media artist. I love her work and follow her auctions. Maybe some day I'll grow up to be an artist...this is my favorite...

what he said...

Shhhhhhhhh

Last week, I had company and lice and fixed up the children's rooms at church, and shopped for Matttie's birthday and planned a birthday party and won a big contest and had coffee with the girls and worried about a place for Daisy to live and went to the small group leaders meeting and cried a little because I was tired.

This week, we had Mattie's party and continued to check for lice and had another Vintage meeting and some intense phone calls and I listed 25 things on ebay and cleaned the house and made homemade chicken soup because the whole family is coughing and worried about money and the wedding next week and Daisy's move on Friday but not parent-teacher conferences today...and I am still a little tired.

But right now...this moment is pretty quiet. So I thought I should write that down. Just so I remember what it feels like.

Charleigh's Little Piggies

"This little piggy went to the carpet.
This little piggy...uh....This little piggy had rice
This little piggy didn't have any
This little piggy did have some of that
This little piggy cried wah wah wah!!!"

Birthday Games

 

 

She's 8 now!

 

 

 

 

Can't believe the little pink bundle we brought home 8 years ago has grown into such a wonderful person...this funny, responsible, easy-going, kind, modest, independent bookworm. Robb swears it was the folic acid I took before getting pregnant...I just think she's a gift from heaven.

Lucky Butterfly

"The butterfly counts not months but moments,
And has time enough."

Hindu poet Rabindranath Tagore

A Serious Contender

Better Make that $595.00

ME: "Thanks for picking up the catalog, Babe. How much was it?"

HIM: "What do you mean, how much was it? It's a catalog."

ME: "Yeah, but they aren't free. You have to pay for them."

US, looking at front of cover which plainly says $5.00: "GASP!"

ME: "You just walked in and took it?! You STOLE the catalog????"

HIM: "I didn't KNOW! I'll go back and pay for it tomorrow."

That's right...The Right Rev stole the JC Penny catalog.

Hi Pioneer Woman Fans!

Thanks for stopping by! Scroll down this page and you'll probably get a good idea of what kind of person I am...I'm no Rancher's Wife, but I do make a mean scalloped potato casserole.

Pick your poison...

ebay work
laundering everything we own
steam clean the carpets
mow the lawn
empty the pool
finish the church nursery stuff
scream at the cable company for not burying the cable yet
redo my blog template and change careers

what to do? what to do.....

What'cha got in there?

At coffee last night, we were confessing the crazy stuff we've had in our cars (not unlike the purse post).

Without looking, I can honestly say, there are about 5 Vintage Fellowship signs, a bunch of CD's we don't listen to and none of the ones we do, a phone book, maps of Memphis and Little Rock (but not here), a bag of tickets to Lokomotion we never cashed in, various shoes and socks, at least three coffee mugs, four million fast food restaurant toys, an extremely stinky car seat, raisins, and oh yeah...old insurance info because I keep forgetting to put the new insurance card thingy in the glove compartment.


This is a much more guy friendly post...so come on and fess up...what's a quick confession of what is in your car?

Huge Oak Tree

I think these are the last of the pictures from my adventures up north. Couldn't resist this enormous oak tree at Gravel Run....

 

 

 

 

Your results:
You are Supergirl

Supergirl 77% Superman 75% Wonder Woman 72% Spider-Man 70% Robin 67% Iron Man 50% Hulk 50% Green Lantern 35% The Flash 35% Catwoman 30% Batman 25%

Lean, muscular and feminine. Honest and a defender of the innocent.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

The Sad But True Story of How I Super-glued My Eyes Shut

(Helena, yes, we still have our dog...and her hormone induced urine-leakage problem..but yeah, that's another post for another time...


Nobody won or lost the Fatness/Skinniness contest since we both lost 10-15 pounds, but we couldn't afford the iPod or the new camera. I ate the better portion of a three meat pizza and had a beer for lunch to help my sense of demoralization...but don't worry...eating less and better is becoming more the norm. )

And now, for the-much-clamored-for, sad but true story, (which is really my best party story, except for maybe the syphilis debacle, and now I'll have to get a new one or be boring from here on out at ALL the parties I go to).

So, once upon a time, I was an innocent freshman in Bible college and I had never done a bad thing in my whole life, except maybe stay out all night, but that was only because it was snowing really hard and I didn't want to drive in it and it was so late, I didn't want to wake my parents up by calling them, so I just drove home in the morning, to which my dad muttered, "Dumb kid...next time, you really should call" and that was literally the end of it.

So, there I was, sitting in my dorm room, minding my own business, studying for a World Civ test, prepping a really edgy persuasive speech for class on "Why We Should Be Able to Hold Hands on Campus," and writing a long composition for my English class on the play I had just led in, Antigone. Since I had had the lead, most people on campus recognized me (it was a small school) and I had forever cast myself on campus as one of those drama-geek-girls...the likes of whom had recently starred in such classics as The Miracle Worker (Helen Keller) and even Shakespeare.

It was a Thursday night and all three of these things were due the next day. After that, I was headed to New York City for the first time on a field trip, and then on to Robb's house for the first time. My life was JUST.... GETTING..... INTERESTING.

Bored, my suite-mate and I struck up a conversation about pranks. I, as I mentioned before, was so good, I had never actually played any pranks myself (boring), but my brother, on the other hand, was a total heathen and extremely hilarious. So I told Nicki about how, in high school, he super-glued a quarter to the floor under the drinking fountain, so that as you leaned down for a drink, you spotted the money, nonchalantly leaned down to pick it up, and ended up looking like a loser trying to retrieve the coin. Nicki found this to be just the thing to snap her out of her study-induced funk. "I have a quarter!" She offered enthusiastically. I had a half-used tube of super-glue in my desk, which I had brought along to college because it was on my lengthy list of "things I might want at some random moment."

If you have any imagination at all, you can picture a half-used tube of super-glue, with it's too-tight, glued-on, twisty-twist lid. In your mind's eye, you should be able to see how the tube, with the tension of my forceful twisting to remove the stuck-on cap, burst open, spewing the opaque, stinky fluid into the air.

My head went back, and to the left as the Krazy hit my eyes, causing me to squint them so tightly closed, my cheek was actually involved. In the right eye, the glue hit mainly the corner of my eye, so I was able to prop it open and survey the damages.

"Guys," I announced calmly to the lounge full of girls, "It's in my eye." Instantly, what seemed like pandemonium broke loose...I think there were 11 girls in my bathroom, which was the size of a postage stamp. Nicki read the side of the tube, "If you get glue in your eyes, flush with water and ..."


"consult a physician"I mentally supplied, since I had actually read the warning label ahead of time.

But Nicki finished lamely, "...keep flushing with more water" so as not to alarm me.

Somebody was being picked up to go babysitting, and that mother was a nurse, so she got dragged into the fray...I don't know what she looked like, but I know her tone was very grave. "You need to go to the emergency room right away."

I still had some sense of humor at this point, and cracked jokes on the way to the ER with my Resident Director, who sadly, didn't have much sense of humor herself, and was prone to be disapproving. After a long time, I was seen by a doctor who asked me to try to move my eye. It was scratchy and burning and tearing, but the tears couldn't get out of the glued-shut duct and thus ran, unflatteringly, out my nostril. The doctor made disapproving noises. The nurses asked if I was trying to glue on nails. The RD, I have no idea about. A specialist was called. I began to get a little nervous at that point, since nobody seemed to think it was funny. "Wait, I'm not gonna lose my eyesight or something because of this?" I asked half-joking. I got truly nervous for the first time when the doctor answered, "We'll just have to wait and see."

In a state of near panic, I waited for the specialist, who came in and asked me a couple of questions, made some jokes (finally!), and then told me what his prescribed course of action would be....as he pulled the skin on my cheek and my eyebrow apart in one quick RIP. That smarted.

And then he cut off my eyelashes. Top and bottom. I actually thought, at this point, about a Seventeen Magazine article I had read about a girl who pulled out her eyelashes when she was a kid, and they never grew back. This was what I decided to freak out about until he ripped my eyelids apart, revealing a strangely-shaped, hardened lump of glue, which had not fused to my cornea since it had been wet enough to prevent a good bond.

I was outfitted with a very unflattering eye-patch and was given a multiplicity of eye-drops to prevent infection. Come to think of it, the eye-patch was probably an improvement over my freaky, lash-less eye.

I returned to the dorm, expecting my only hurdle to be removing the remaining glue from my hair. Turns out, the whole dorm had heard that I was blinded in both eyes, which was also reported to the entire guys soccer team who were at the National tournament in Florida for the week. For months after that, I was greeted on the sidewalk by many a bleach-blond jock, "Hey, Helen Keller."

My Camera

If you have ever wondered about what kind of camera I use for all my ebay work and the pics you see on the blog, this is my camera...the Olympus D-380. It is five years old and all of the external writing is worn off due to EVERYDAY use. I still really like it, even though i know there are lots of flashier, fancier cameras out there. I added a bigger memory card, and it has been an absolute workhorse for me.

I also have a beautiful SLR that I occasionally use for something nice. I much prefer the quality it produces, but who has time to set up a manual camera when your kids are being adorable?

(okay, okay...i'll tell you the glue story...tomorrow)

Happy Birthday Mom!

 

 

From adorable dimpled darling to the Queen of Resourcefulness...Quirky, creative, and always before her own time...made pretty curtains for our tree-house...kills spiders with her bare hands but would nurture anything that had two live cells left...she taught me to keep house like an art-form, cook up comfort, and find luxury in the simplest things...I rise up and call you Blessed.

D.U.M.B.

I was cleaning out my office cupboard yesterday. I was sorting the kid's papers, sitting on the floor, and somehow managed to flick the corner of a 8X11 piece of card-stock into my eye. This resulted in ...no kidding...a scratch on my cornea. That's right folks, I sustained a organizational, paper-related ocular injury.

My vision is quite blurry in my right eye, which was VERY noticeable when I drove to the grocery store last night after dark.

No worries...It sounds like a big deal, but a scratched cornea is actually pretty common. When I read about it online, possible ways of incurring this injury actually included...

...pieces of paper.

Like any scrape, it should heal in 1-3 days and the blurriness should subside barring infection.


Still. Pretty dumb.

Just a a few more pictures

 

Elmer Fudd, really?

 

This is made of metal!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Mom had seen this name about 25 years ago, I'd have a little sister with this name...

 

My mom wondered what was in this little building...to which I answered, "Uh, shovels."

 

Gravel Run Cemetery

Okay, just one more cemetery (for now). By this time, my parents and I had had a steak dinner and a beer, and we were all much more interested in this location. I can never find this place on my own, but my Dad, who has GPS built into his brain, took four curvy dirt roads, including a detour for a bridge that was out, and pulled right up to it. This is Gravel Run Cemetery, close to Cambridge Springs, but really, not close to anything. Which is why the assortment of people buried here is so stunning to me. There was a brand new grave in the corner, but we found many stones that dated to the 1700's, with veterans of every war beginning with the Revolutionary War. Apparently there was a mill close by when the first people were buried here, but now, it is extremely remote and serene.

 

 

 

 

 

These are my mother's grandparents, whom she grew up next door to. I have vague memories of my great grandmother, but they are more like the memory of a scent than pictures in my mind, as she died when I was 2. I have always felt close to her, however, probably because of my Mom's memories of her, but also because of the quirky way your genes create kismet. For example...I grow morning glories, love to attend auctions ( and always think I'll match up a set of dishes) wear floral aprons and have a piano exactly like the one I see in a picture of her house. Her birthday is a week after mine, and my great grandfather's birthday is a week after Robb's.
I have one memory of my great grandfather...he bought us Christmas presents and brought them to our house one day before Christmas. I must have been five. He died that year. They are buried with their youngest daughter, Carlotta, who died of either pneumonia or a water snake bite. She was about 2 years old. I believe she is pictured with my great grandmother in the last photo, but I'm not certain.

 

 

 

 

Finally, these are two old photos in my collection. The school picture from Shady Lawn shows the tallest girl, Coral Belle Hale, for whom my grandmother, Coral and my sister are named. The other picture reads "Mrs Fred Humes." According to my research, that would have been my great, great grandmother. What is confusing is that all of my records and research name Coral Belle Hale as Mattie Lucille's mother. But my mother and grandma told me she was named for her aunt. The two pictures could possibly be the same woman, but I can't tell for certain. Coral Belle died in 1924 at the age of 30.