What'll Ya Have?

I've been going to the Varsity since I was in the womb but I still whip out the camera every time I take my boys there. I'm not really sure why. We've eaten there dozens of times but I always feel the need to document the outing.

As you can tell, my too-cool twelve year old is not always thrilled with my photographic enthusiasm:

Isn't it in the Mommy Manual to torture your kids in public? Yes? I thought so. Photo shoots rank right up there with using phrases liked "that's jacked up" or belting out Demi Lovato tunes in front of their friends. Not that I've done that or anything. 

Hey at least I didn't make him wear the paper hat this time. I am a fount of compassion, I am.

Sweet Tears on a Freckled Face

Yesterday morning, my younger son Jacob was sitting at the table in our camper eating his cereal. He was playing his handheld video game and not paying attention to the morning show I was watching. Just then, a commercial for the ASPCA (animal protection group) came on featuring photos of neglected animals.

I saw him glance up then back down then he looked up again and the saddest look came over his little six-year-old face. He looked up at me and whispered "sad animals" and started blinking away tears. My sweet boy has always had a heart for animals but I didn't know the depths of his sensitivity until I saw him visibly moved by the sight of those images.

I couldn't help but hug him and comfort him as alligator tears slipped down across his soft freckled cheeks. My heart warmed at the sight of his compassion for animals. He's always been amazing with our own pets but I realized it ran deeper than that. As the commercial went off I reassured him that those animals were being taken care of and he smiled and, obviously trying to compose himself, said "ok Mommy" and tried to smile.

Ah the heart of my sweet sweet boy.

Saying Goodbye to Chattahoochee Bend

Well, it was a great week of camping with my fellas. We hung out with friends, relaxed and just generally enjoyed getting away for a few days.

A few more pics to wrap up the week:

The Chattahoochee River...very peaceful.

What Daniel and I call the camoflauge tree. Parts of the bark actually look like camo. Pretty cool. Here's a close up

Me and the D man looking for a hiding place for a letterbox we 're making...

Think we found a perfect hiding spot !

Packed up and heading to the house...

Later. :)

S'more Friends Come to Visit

A day that started out with a thunderstorm ended up being beautiful and ending with laughter, friends and a breathtaking sky full of stars.

We also gained neighbors... our friend John and his son Evan. They are our camping buddies and the boys play great together.

My friend Tammy and her daughter Ella came to hang out again and then her hubby Jerry joined us for dinner after work. We cooked out, solved the world's problems then (attempted to) made S'mores. Each marshmallow that met an untimely death in the fire was met with more laughter. We're clearly in need of some trainin'. Just sayin.

As soon as our company left, all the men folk crashed so here I am with my thoughts, my blog and 10 uneaten Hershey bars. Sometimes being a night owl has its perks.

Night y'all.

A True Break from Winter

74 degrees today. Really???  Weren't we just iced in with no power a week ago?? Well today was a far cry from winter's grip as my friend Cindy and her boys came to hang out with us.

Spent some much-needed girl time with Cindy and the boys played, played, and played some more. :)

Cindy and I made s'mores for the boys and I had to take a picture of her attempt. It was tragic, y'all. (Caution: the photo you are about to see will be disturbing for true s'mores lovers.) Needless to say, we laughed for quite a while over that one.

Just before sunset, the boys and I went down to the Chattahoochee River and listened to the wind in the trees, the crickets in the woods and the fast moving water below. We then shrieked like school girls and ran to the car when we thought we saw a bat. Ah, the great outdoors.

Nice Weather...Is it Really You?!

Today's weather was cool, overcast and perfect for camping. We had our first visitors of the week-- my friend Tammy and her daughter Ella. The kids played hard all day and Tammy and I enjoyed just having time to catch up.

After they left, the sun slowly slipped away and we grilled out hamburgers as the sound of crickets nearly drowned out the music coming from inside the camper. All in all, a great day of camping....

Sunshine is Good for the Soul

Today is a spectacular day with sunshine, a light breeze and 63 perfect degrees. There's a playground just up the hill from our campsite so the boys and I decided to get outside for a little fresh air. It was GLORIOUS. We laughed, climbed, swung (swang? swung??) and had a blast. 

 

Came back to the camper and picnicked outside while playing a game. Their smiles say it all. (And I mighta smiled, too) ;)

Blogging Remotely... And I Do Mean REMOTE-ly

Greetings from the middle of nowhere, y'all.  Not wanting to end my streak of periodic posting (periodic is even stretching it) I found an app for Blogger on my phone. Just think...the two or three people that follow this blog won't have to go so long without hearing from me now! :)

Well the boys and I are camping at Chattahoochee Bend State Park this week for their winter break so I'll try to post about our adventures here.  I'm not sure how pictures will show up on here since they're coming straight from my phone but here goes:

The boys playing games as I cook dinner...

Two monkeys invaded my bed this morning

Quiet morning time while the boys play in their room

More later....

Catching Up...

I did say I was going to be on here every day, didn't I? Oops.

This is a random post about random things until I can get back into the habit of posting every day. So, here goes:

Random Item #1:  Winter Wonderland, Cabin Fever and Such

Well The Storm Tracker Doppler Deluxe Wizometer 3000 on the news said it would be a whopper of a storm and they were right. A few inches of snow was pretty but it only hid the layer of thick ice underneath making travel impossible. Add to that no power for six hours and it makes for a nice little dose of cabin fever. And Monopoly by flashlight, folks? Never again. :)

The back yard the first morning... serene and peaceful when the sound of branches cracking didn't fill the air :)

The gas grill not quite ready for a cookout

My new mantra

Solo cup art ice sculpture

Family togetherness at its finest

Random Item #2:  Be My Valentine (Kindergarten Style)

I helped organize Jacob's Valentine's Day party and of course I get the honor of manning the Cookie Decorating Station From Hell. I am truly a glutton for punishment. Take a relatively sane 42 year old woman, stick her in a chair that belongs in a dollhouse surrounded by 10 or so Kindergartners at a time that are already hyped up on sugar. Insert into this scene of horror tubs of frosting, popsicle sticks and jars of colored sugar, sprinkles and cinnamon heart candies and you have a recipe for disaster.

And don't let the angelic face below fool you (Jacob, not me) :)  As you can clearly see, his sprinkle to cookie ratio is clearly in favor of toppings. After a few kiddos taking the lid off and dumping an entire jar of rainbow sprinkles out on the table and screaming in delight as they swing their arms through them sending colored morsels through the air, I hereby bequeath my title of Momma Most Easily Suckered Into Manning the Cookie Table to someone more emotionally qualified. 

And that's all I've got for now, y'all. More later.

Ice, Ice Baby

Pardon the title but I had to. I just had to.

Well, the ice has cometh and we are sequestered here in the house and pretty soon I'm going to be forced to clean something. Games have been played, chips and dip consumed and now I have no choice but to try and be productive. OK, maybe a little later.

But, in the meantime, here are a few pics:

Bushes frozen solid with a coating of ice

Some of the the smaller trees glisten with ice-covered branches

Pine tree limbs weighted down with icicles

Cassie riding out the storm in her usual position... relaxation. :)

Who Needs Facebook Anyway?

Apparently me.

I knew I was sinking way too much time into an online social networking site but I truly underestimated the impact that leaving Facebook would have on my psyche. The moment I deactivated my account, it honestly felt like I no longer existed. Disturbing thought, eh?

You see, I used to blog here all the time and had a decent following. I enjoyed the camaraderie of fellow bloggers and even developed new friendships in what I found to be a fairly tight knit community of folks that enjoy writing as much as I do. But life got the best of me and I slowly disengaged from the process of recording my thoughts as I was sucked into the world of instant gratification. Why post on a blog that few, if any, people will read when I can wax poetic on a status update and receive instant feedback and quips about my clever wit or amazing parenting skills?

Well, it's simple. On Facebook, I was able to paint a portrait of who I was without having to include a lot of the not-so-pretty stuff about my life. Sure a blog can serve the same purpose but, for some reason, I feel less compelled to make it "pretty" on here. And believe you me, life isn't all that pretty for me right now. I also found myself never able to put my phone down for fear of missing a message, not knowing the lunch choices of my friends or, God forbid, not finding out what character I would be on Downton Abbey and why. (By the way, I was Mrs. Hughes which is kinda cool except WHEN will she and the head butler Carson ever expose their feelings for one another?!)  I digress.

How much will I delve into the struggles I'm experiencing right now in a public forum? I'm not sure. But what I can say is I'm going to be on here every day. And I'm going to be real. And even if no one but me is reading this...well, that's ok, too. I will continue to write because that's what I do.

As for Facebook. I won't pretend that I'm not having big-time withdrawals. A major winter storm is impacting Atlanta right now and I would love to see pics posted by friends, updates, conversations about snow totals, etc. But I continue in my self-imposed darkness because it's what I need to do.

So if by chance you're reading this, my apologies for one of the most boring blog posts ever. But you know what? I'm pretty boring sometimes. And someday I'll realize there's nothing wrong with that. :)

For the Love of the Game: It's Not Easy Being An Athletic Powerhouse

I'm not sure what made me think that, at 42 years old, I could don a pair of cleats and go whip my two boys in baseball. But, that's exactly what I thought. I even backed up the smack talk with a picture on Facebook of my cleats with the message "Bring it On!"

I'm not changing the subject or anything but did you know that there are different levels of calf muscle injuries?

That's right. CALF MUSCLE INJURY.

You see, my competitive ju-ju was flowing as Jacob and I were in the lead 6-1 against Daniel and our golden retriever Cassie. Yes, I am bragging abut beating a dog in baseball but let's not get bogged down in the details. So, I step up to the plate, tap the mud off my cleats because that's what we ball players do. Then, in an oh-so-impressive display of athletic prowess, I swung the plastic yellow bat and connected with the tennis ball sending it sailing against the neighbor's fence -- which was clearly an in-field homer.

::insert slow motion sequence here. The fans leap to their feet. Daniel watches the ball soar over his head as I sling my bat to the side and take the first step of my victory lap around the bases (aka the frisbee, the cardboard box top and the lid to a skillet)::

And as I planted my left foot in the still-saturated-from-snow dirt, I pushed off and heard a POP! as a sharp pain shot through my left calf and I dropped to the ground. Yep, you guessed it. Pulled (hopefully not tore) the muscle in my left calf. The boys rushed to my side and in a touching display of compassion and concern exclaimed "does this mean we can't play anymore???" It was a Hallmark moment, really.

You know, when I first posted the smack-talking picture of my cleats on Facebook my pal Ed kindly responded with something about me being an awesome Mom. Then came the comment from my friend Debbie asking what time she needed to bring the Advil. I nearly died laughing as I called her with my leg elevated on a bag of frozen peas. It was no surprise to her that I had sustained a career-ending injury and she laughed with me at the prophetic nature of her comment.

Perhaps I should stick to the crafty stuff and remember with fondness the glory days of sending one over the fence, of rounding the bases as the crowds roared and my team poured out of the dugout to meet me at home plate. Of course, I'm guessing you can't remember things that never happened, huh?

What happened today was a 42-year old woman talked smack to her kids then injured herself and writhed around in the mud in pain before resting her leg on a bag of frozen veggies. If it wasn't so pathetic, I'd probably refrain from laughing. But I can't. And when I'm walking again in 7 or 8 months, I'm sure the call of the game will draw me back out there again.

What can I say? Once a pretend ball player, always a pretend
ball player...............

Shower Quest 2014: A Foaming Hand Soap, a Paper Towel and a Dream

This really was not supposed to be a difficult task. I am 42 years old and have showered independently for 30+ years. Why have a complete breakdown in my comprehension of the fundamentals now? Isn't it like riding a bike? Once you get the hang of it, it kinda sticks with you. You know, like old pieces of luggage or the lyrics to Hopelessly Devoted To You.  I overshared, didn't I? If your answer is "yes"... buckle up. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

The year was... oh heck, this happened today. TODAY. Even though we have a camper with a fully-outfitted bathroom, I was feeling a bit outnumbered by boys...a couple of whom were especially rambunctious and so I decided to journey up to the nearest bathhouse to shower, dress, do my make-up. The works. And, because we are some of the only idiots that decide to camp in the dead of winter, I felt certain I would have the place to myself (which I did.)

So off I drive to the bathhouse with the essentials in tow:  clothes, make-up/toiletry bag, hair dryer, brush. I'm all set. I walk into the expansive women's side and proceed to spread out my things secretly relishing the quiet. No echos of a handheld gaming device within earshot and I hadn't heard the word "poothead" in at least 10 minutes. I might as well have been a princess in my castle high on the hill.

But, princesses would most likely have some sort of staff member that would remind them that when showering one's body, one usually needs some sort of towel item with which to dry off one's body upon exiting said shower. But I didn't. And when did I realize this? Well, as soon as the water had gotten just the right temperature and I was naked as the day I was born. Now, if you must know, I agree with you. I should NOT have to have a servant to remind me that I need a towel when showering. But that is totally beside the point. Or not. But still.

So this is where you get to participate in my story. Like one of the cool books from when I was in my teens, you get to choose which path the main character should take at a crucial juncture in the story.

Choice A:  Character realized her oversight and, in a mature and preferably modest fashion, gets dressed, gathers her things and drives back to the camper where she runs in, grabs a towel and returns to the bathhouse to shower with a proper drying sequence afterwards.

Choice B:  Character realized her oversight and, because she is too lazy to get her things and drive back to the camper and she's already undressed and the water temp is JUST RIGHT OH YES IT IS, she wraps her jeans around herself (yeah that worked about as good as you're thinking it did) and runs like she's on fire across the bathhouse to the towel dispenser and, while trying to hold a pair of jeans around her with one hand, proceeds to dispense thin, campground-grade paper towels praying to the heavens that no one walks through the door. She then scurries back to the shower, drops the jeans, drapes the wad o' towels over the curtain (because that won't call attention to her lack of preparedness) and begins to step into the shower.

Well, which one did you choose? Clearly the correct answer for MY story was A. (insert wild, hysterical laughter here). If you are reading this blog because you have known me for at least five minutes then you picked B right off the bat.

OH BUT IT GETS BETTER.

You didn't think my oversight stopped at the towel, did you? Of COURSE not. Although clothes, and make-up and brushes and hairdryers (and even towels!) are important, a shower just really isn't serving its full purpose without....soap...or shampoo? Yes. I seriously drove to a bathhouse to take a shower and the ONLY two things I forgot were a towel and shampoo. I even amaze me sometimes.

So.... because the wrapped-in-jeans scenario was mildly stressful to say the least, I throw on my long shirt and dance across the cold tile to one of the hand soap dispensers and proceed to pump, pump, pump this MASSIVE heaping of FOAM into my hand. I raced back to my shower looking as if I was running with a tiny white dog or the top of a lemon icebox pie in my hand. I close the curtain and am forced to soap up my dry head of hair so I can successfully remove the clean shirt I was planning to wear without the result being a sleeve full of soap.

You know, there are days where I have wrangled a thousand people to ensure the success of a big event and there are days when I just have no idea what my name is. This must have been one of those days. But I must say, the paper towels did the job and my hair even seemed a bit bouncier than normal. Maybe I've stumbled onto something???

My friends will indeed declare this as a "Katie Story" because they claim these things only happen to me. Even so, I think next time I'll stick to the little bathroom in our camper where all the "essentials" are within grasp.

Wonder if that foaming hand soap is only sold in bulk???

Sweet Memories: A Tribute to Di

My grandfather would have been 105 years old today.

That boggles my mind.

George Dewey Lightsey was my Mom's father and, even though I only had him in my life until I was 13, I remember him as the best grandad that ever was. The entire time I knew my Mom's folks, they lived in a 700 square foot house in Robertsdale, Alabama. I have written about their home before and how many of my most cherished childhood memories were made playing with Fisher Price people on the roots of the magnolia trees that shaded their little backyard.

Because I lost him as a young girl, the memories I do have of "Di" as I called him are not great in quantity; however, they are as rich and vibrant as if he were standing here today. He was a bit older than other grandfathers but was as playful as the boy next door when it came to my sister and me. Many a time as we ate spaghetti, he would "crank" a long strand of sauce-laden noodles into his mouth by spinning his fingers in a circular motion beside his head and making a loud slurping sound. Much to the chagrin of my prim and proper grandmother, the result was always a rim of sauce along his upper lip that he delighted in licking off as my sister and I giggled.

But what I remember the most about this man-- more than his garage filled with old license tags nailed to the wall and slightly eccentric collection of gourds suspended from the ceiling; more than his warm smile and twinkling eyes-- is the love he showed to my grandmother. Frances Lightsey was a dainty and utterly-proper lady with perfectly polished red fingernails and regularly-coiffed beautiful white hair. He treated her like a queen and doted on her with an adoration rare after so many years of marriage. Even sleeping in twin beds next to each other, they would fall asleep holding hands across the space separating them. After fifty-plus years of marriage, they were very much partners and very much in love. And, fittingly, I lost them both in my seventh-grade year proving that not even death could keep them apart for long.

Happy Birthday, Di. I miss you and would give anything for my own children to sit in your lap and giggle at your endearing goofiness. And although I have now gone thirty years without seeing you, I can close my eyes and you are there. Thank you for the happiness you imparted on my childhood. I lost you too soon but I sure was lucky to have you for a grandfather.

Sweet memories indeed.