Day 9: Mom & Dad

Day 9: Your Parents

"Let's raise children who won't have to recover from their childhood." - Pam Leo

Where do I start?

God, in all His infinite wisdom, gifted me with an incredible set of parents. One of my greatest wishes is that one day, Jason and I can be at least half the parents to our children as mine were and continue to be to me.
Throughout my life they have been a constant source of strength and encouragement. They've seen me at my absolute worst, and still managed to love me unconditionally.
I have seen them happy, sad, frustrated, uplifted, disappointed, and proud. I have seen them struggle, and overcome, and every other condition in between. Along with my brother, there are few memories from my past that do not include them in it.

When I think of somebody who is infinitely kind spirited, compassionate, and charitable, my mom immediately comes to my mind. And I daily try to love, honor, and trust the Lord in the complete, and unassuming way she does. Trusting His plans for her life, seems to be an unquestionable trait of hers, and it is one that I struggle with. She gives monetary, and material gifts with an open heart, even at times when a more economical person would not, with the full faith that God will provide her and my dad with assistance in others ways and other times. He always has.
She has cool hands, that are soft like butter. And she hums gospel songs, when she vacuums, and on long car rides, and when she cooks. She does it a lot. She is a cancer survivor, and my greatest inspiration on how to handle trials and tribulations in my own life. When going through treatment, she had my dad shave her head, and she never wore a wig. She's not perfect (I did get my temper from her), but she is perfectly beautiful in spirit, and presence. Her battle with cancer opened my eyes to the fragility of the human life. The experience we had, has definitely helped me to better appreciate, the weight of each moment, of each breath I take, and the time I spend with those that possess my heart.

My daddy, he was the first man in my life, and the one that I measure all others against. (I am so very lucky that God blessed me with a husband that has so many traits that I need and desire from the love of my life.) He is strong, and resolute, he is honorable in the purest sense, uncompromising, and loyal. He can literally do anything with his hands it seems. He's a McGuyver for sure. I've never seen anything broken that he can't fix. They definitely don't make them like him anymore. I never knew what a maintenance man, plumber, or electrician looked like till I went to college. Actually, I did... he was daddy. He can do it all.
I used to dance on his feet. He would throw me up and catch me, and I felt like I could fly to the moon. I don't think I can go to the moon anymore, but he still thinks I can.
Again, he's not perfect, (and boy have I heard some stories about the younger him!!), but he has taught me so much over my life... not the least of which to check my oil once a week...(it's the life on the engine! and hey, the Bronco is still rocking right along). He is a good man. The best kind of man. And he's my daddy.

I have my mamas flash-pan quick temper, that sometimes explodes at the most inopportune moments, (I also like to be right...all the time), and I can be pretty set in my ways like my daddy, but I like to think the good, important, positive aspects of my character are from the greatest role models in my life.

Because they have made such a huge impression on me, I sometimes have a hard time separating myself from their lead, and feeling a need to check with them before making many decisions in my life. But one thing that my mom has constantly said throughout my life is that, she will know she and dad did good, if my brother and I can go out in the world, on our own, set our own goals, and succeed. With my husband's help, I'm working on it.

This is mama around age 7.

This is mama at 18... she looks like a movie star.

This is my daddy around age 6... isn't he cute?

About the same age.... I just love this one.

Wedding Day, I think this might have been the second one? The first one they were married by a blind judge at the courthouse... they had a ceremony later for family and close friends.

my wedding day.... (the only one!)

There's no denying I'm my dad's kid!

I'm a lucky girl. I don't have to recover from my childhood.

xoxo,
asm

Day 8: Message In A Bottle

Day 8: Something You've Done That Sets You Apart

Well, I didn't really know what to write about when I got to this topic, so since I've been meaning to blog about it for awhile now, I decided to talk about something Jason and I did during our wedding that was a little different than the norm.

Jason and I got married October 10, 2009 in the backyard of a home on Hampton Point, St. Simons Island. I've always known that I would marry my husband on St. Simons, a place that is as dear to me as my own childhood home. Calling it my "second home" doesn't really do it justice. It's where the other half of my soul resides. When J and I began actually planning our wedding, friends and family assumed it would be a beach wedding, since we were dragging kindly asking them to travel 5.5 hours south to attend a wedding in the backyard? But it was the marshes, and the Spanish moss, and the shadows and light that I was after to be the backdrop and setting of my fairytale wedding.

If you've been there, you know that the Golden Isles are not your typical paradise of white sandy beaches and crystal clear blue water... truthfully it's gray sand, and muted, opaque sometimes green, sometimes not, always brackish waters... and it's absolutely, captivatingly, beautiful. So we planned an October wedding, in the backyard of a friends home (we could have fit maybe us and the preacher in mama & daddy's backyard), and it poured down rain 10 minutes before the music was to start, and stopped just as Jason was walking his handsome self to the end of the aisle, (can I get an AMEN!), leaving a rainbow and crystal drops of sweet southern raindrops on the leaves. It was a rather warm evening, but very few bugs (another Hallelujah here!), and because of the short shower, everything was a little "dewy" but the day was absolutely, perfectly wonderful.
I always love anything unique, different, fanciful, etc..., that being said, I knew I didn't want us to do the traditional unity candle, because they never seem to stay lit during an outside ceremony, or unity sand because I felt that was too predictable (no offense to anybody who does that at all! i think it's a wonderful memento/keepsake), and I just knew I wanted to do something whimsical and unconventional. I thought how fun it would be to really take advantage of the island/ocean setting by incorporating a message in a bottle as the "unity" aspect of our service ... so I told J about it, and surprisingly he went right along with it (I often come to him with off the wall suggestions/opinions on things, so I was expecting the look, thankfully he's super patient with his wife...that'd be me, and he really got into this idea of mine....now if I can just get him to agree to a pink refrigerator!).

So, basically, we wrote love letters to each other that neither one of us had read. We put them in a heart shaped glass bottle my mother gave us. She got it years ago, and kept it because she'd loved the shape. It couldn't have been any more perfect... I suppose it was serendipity that had made her hold on to it for so long. So J and I put in our letters, along with a letter to the finder, a self-addressed envelope, and an albino peacock feather that had been in my bouquet and J's boutonniere.

After the wedding we sealed that puppy up, waited for an outgoing tide, and threw her into the great, wide-open ocean off Gould's Inlet.

I'm pretty sure the thing probably sunk like a rock the second we turned out backs on it. But maybe it's still on it's way to China (or maybe it's caught up in one of those floating junkyards in the middle of the Atlantic that Greenpeace is always yapping about). Who knows. We will probably never see it again, but I think the mystery of where it winds up is part of the fun in it.

This is the letter we included in the bottle,

I have really, (like whoa!) terrible handwriting... and I apparently can't write a straight line. don't judge.

This is us putting our love letters in the bottle....

This is the bottle.... we realized after we did it that it looks like a seagull did his business all over it, but whatev. We poured enough wax over that cork to make multiple candles, we didn't want that cork going a.n.y.w.h.e.r.e. (it probably popped of the second it hit the water).

And this... this is a little something I put together for your viewing pleasure. Be forewarned, I, nor J has any experience in cinematography. what.so.ever.... as is blatantly evident by how choppy, bouncy, poorly focused, and overall inferior quality it is.... but, I LOVE it!
ps- if you decide to watch it, i suggest you scroll to the bottom of the post and pause my "blogger tunes" first, or it might give you a headache!





xoxo,
asm

Day 7: Let Your Soul Shine

Bet you thought I'd forgotten about my blog didn't you? Well, never fear, I am back to bore you with more inconsequential details about me and my life...

Thursday Handsome and I bid adieu to the farm, left the kitty cats to fend for themselves, and took a much needed mini-vacation to St. Simons to visit my family. (I miss them. All the time.) I hesitated to leave the purr babies for so long to fend for themselves in the wilderness, but J said they have their claws for battle, should the need arise, and I also saw it as a good opportunity for Petra to realize how important a person I really am in her life, and thought it may make her appreciate me more after my return. It didn't. Once we came home, and settled in, she preceded to jump up on the couch, walk right across me, and curl up in the crook of J's arm. No loyalty that one.

Our trip....we did a lot of laying around, reading (me), playing online poker (J), and eating. I ate a whole pack of Oreo's on Friday. by.myself. And they were double stuffed, meaning I really ate TWO packages of Oreo's on Friday. by.myself. Yikes. I had to lay flat on the bed this morning to get my jeans zipped. Nice image huh? Anyway... it rained. A lot. But we got to spend some good quality time walking the dogs, cleaning up after the dogs, running after the dogs when they ran off with my family. I miss them. All the time.

J and I also took a couple of poles and wet a hook for a little bit. We caught nothin'. But had a good time at it anyway.

Here I am feeding the seagulls our leftover shrimp. J took this. He's quite proud of the action shot, (me, in the air looking like the biggest goon). It happens to look even more silly, because there's not the slightest sign of a bird anywhere in that picture. But trust me, they are there, about to swoop in from all sides.

So, that explains my absence from my blog. Did I mention, I miss my family?

Day 7: Put Your Ipod on shuffle, list the first 10 songs that play.

Well, J broke my Ipod. He says he didn't, but I know the truth. Actually, I don't really think he did, but it did just so happened to have stopped working while in his possession. Dern thing won't even turn on. I keep meaning to google it, but I just never can seem to find the time.... Anyway, the Ipod is shot, BUT, I did run across a CD of mine that I burned a while back that just happens to have playable songs on it, so, that's what ya get. Beggars can't be choosers round these parts. I really am amazed that the CD even plays, I have a tendency to scratch the bejeejesuz out of anything that says "do not scratch." Cell phones, CD's, the sidewalls of my tires....It's a gift.

1. Soulshine. This is an Allman Brothers Song. It's now performed by Gov't Mule (sometimes I feel like one of those don't you? A gov't mule? anyway...) And one of my all time favorite songs. E.V.E.R. It's one of my theme songs that I would have playing somewhere on the soundtrack of my life... you can listen to it here.

2. Chances Are. This is a duet by Bob Seger and Martina McBride, and it's in the movie Hope Floats... another one of my favorite songs ever recorded. This song was J's and my first dance song at our wedding... for that reason it will always, always, always have a special place in my heart. He's definitely the best I've ever met. Gives me chills every time ---> here

This must be a CD I made right before the wedding, because it has a lot of songs that were played during the ceremony and reception.... I'm listening as I go, and it's totally taking me back...

3. Galloway Girl. If you've ever seen P.S. I Love You, this song probably sounds familiar. Gerard Butler AND Jeffery Dean Morgan sing it to Hilary Swank's character.... lucky girl. Anyway, it's by one of my favorite southern rock, country, bluegrass artists Steve Earle. J and I had this on our wedding website, and the bluegrass band we had at the wedding played it. l.o.v.e it. here

4. In Your Eyes Is originally a 1980's hit by Peter Gabriel, but this particular version is by the Vitamin String Quartet. I walked down the aisle to this version. Another one of those that gives me chills. Minute 1:16, uh, yes. please. here. The lyrical version is awesome too, but we're going with the CD here folks... it does get kind of repetitive around minute 3, so feel free to cut it short, and head back this way.

5. Father & Daughter, by Paul Simon. Danced to this song with my sweet daddy at my wedding. You can dance to it with your daddy too, here.

6. Daughter, by Loudon Wainwright, this was somewhat of a contender for my daddy/daughter dance, but lost out because it basically would have made me sound like a spoiled little brat. which I'm not (I hope!), but my daddy (+mama) definitely blessed me with a lot in my life. you can listen to it here.

7. If The World Had a Front Porch, by Tracy Lawrence.... here Don't get more country than that! When I youtubed this song, this video that I linked was the first one available, so I grabbed it. I really loved the artistic nature of the video.... Visuals for virtually every line of the song. Perf! the bowl of ice cream was my favorite. ;-)

8. Blue Skies, written by Irving Berlin, recorded by many, sung here by Willie Nelson.... another one of those life soundtrack songs... I love how mellow his version is. Just an amiable, afternoon of soft rain, curled up on a porch swing with your sweetheart kinda song.... Blue October also has a song also called Blue Skies, here. This one is less mellow, makes me want to grab a jump rope and start double-dutching or something... if i had a jump rope, or knew how to double dutch...

9. I Wish It Would Rain, by Nanci Griffith. She's one of my favorite artists, and this is one of my favorites of her's, feast your ears on this little "folkabilly" jewel here.

10. The Weakness of Me, by Joan Armatrading is a haunting, somewhat gritty, totally relate-able track. Here ya go!


If any of those links don't work, or take you somewhere in cyberspace that you really shouldn't be, I apologize. I'm still learning. Aren't we always?

xoxo,
asm

Day 6: "Animal House"

Day 6: Pets


That one's not mine. But every time I see it. I.crack.up.













This is Sutton. Jason and I got him about a month after we started dating. We found him wandering around a dump up in Resaca, Georgia. We were shocked that somebody could just throw him away like a piece of garbage, and we determined that we would take him home with us. We'd had him about a day, when we figured out his tendency to go on "walk abouts" and not come back. I've since concluded, maybe his old people didn't throw him away, more likely, he went for his afternoon jaunt, and "forgot" to go back home. It's happened on more than one occasion with us. Although, lately he's been doing much better about coming back to the house. Which I'm happy about because it means I no longer have to run up the road like a mad woman with my nappy house shoes and bathrobe flying when I see him hit up the fire hydrant and then keep going. To be fair though, I think it was a conspiracy thought up by my sweet devious Tiki-Belle.

That's Tiki-Belle. Don't let that sweet face fool you. She's as slick as the day is long. She's the one who you often see leading Sutton up the road, tail swishing, with a particular set of her head, that you know means business. She's on a mission. A mission to become an only dog. You can actually watch her get to a certain point of the road, then leave Sutton to his own devices (which bless him, are not the brightest), and then turn around and head back to sit on the front porch, and reign over her territory. While ole Sutton continues on down the road, oblivious that Tiki has just abandoned him. If she had hands, you can bet that she would do that dusting off motion of a job well done. But when she's not plotting, she really is the best snuggle buddy. She can't jump up on the bed, so she'll put her two front paws on the side of the bed, and peak over the top of the mattress with her ears back, just looking all precious. I'm telling ya, that dog knows exactly what's she's doing. I saved her from being euthanized at the animal control in Brunswick, Ga my freshman year of college. I think she some how knows she got a second chance, and has been grateful for every day she's had since. You could learn a lot from this dog, on how to enjoy life. When someone walks in the room she just lights up. She loves being inside, she loves being outside, she loves car rides, she loves sleeping, she loves laps, she loves running and jumping and chasing, she loves to sit on the step of the deck and study the world. This dog, when it comes to living and loving life, "gets" it.

That's Mr. Butler. This picture is a year old. I can't believe I don't have anymore recent pictures of that little mess. But this picture pretty much sums up everything you need to know about Sir Butler. If you could bottle the energy that this dog has in one little toe nail of his, you could probably power the town of Cartersville for a week. I get tired just thinking about him. I adopted him from a friend who was a couple months shy of having her second baby. He wasn't house broken at the time, so I got a good deal on him....free..and a year later he's still not house trained. Oh he will use the potty outside all day long, but he will also use it inside 2 minutes after you've let him in after an afternoon in the back yard. God love him. I know a big part of the problem is that he still has his boy parts, so a lot of the incidents are territory marking. gotta.get.that.fixed.before.i.lose.my.mind. I've done some researching, and from everything I've read, some teacup breeds never really "get" the housebreaking down to a science. say it ain't so. We love him though. I love to snuggle him, and baby talk him, and throw toys that are as big as he is, but he always drags back. He's my "meeester bootler" <---- that's what I have to yell to get him to come back to the house, (try it, it's fun to say....haha). He's a wanderer too. Gotta get some tracking devices to put on these animals.
That's Crete. She's a cat. She has turquoise blue eyes. And she is sweeter than her sister Petra. I don't have a picture of Petra, but she's just like Crete, except she's calico, fatter, yellow-green eyes, and meaner. So actually, they are really nothing alike....except they're both cats. Crete is my sweetheart, but she's glutton for punishment if she doesn't quit sharpening her claws on my living room chairs, and pooping in the guest bath tub. <---I'm pretty sure that's my fault because I don't have a litter box in the house for her, and sometimes I lose track of who's been out and who hasn't. She likes Jason better than she does me... so does Petra for that matter. He can have that one. She's mean. I love her, but she's just nice enough to me so I'll continue feeding her, and let her sleep on my stomach when we watch t.v., but no more than that. I'm not allowed to look at her, talk to her, put her outside to potty, or pet her. If I do any of those things, she'll hiss, growl, and strike at me. So I don't. We have an understanding, she and I.

That's Sweet Pea or Ms. Pea (it's interchangeable). I got her from the North Georgia Fair for my 17th birthday, and I've had her ever since. She's the last of our actual "farm" animals. And I love her. In this picture she's eating leftover cake. That pig loves cake, and twinkies, and chips from El Nopal. For a time she lived in a dog house in a pin, but one day she decided she needed bigger quarters so she moved her belongings (seriously, she drug her bedding and hay with her), to the shed outside of the fence. We kept an eye on her for a few days to make sure she didn't head over to the neighbors and start rooting around in their yard. She didn't, so we left her to it. We get some funny looks from people who stop by the house from time to time. I was home a couple of weeks ago, and the termite guy knocked on the door, and said "ma'am, I think you've got a wild pig running around loose in your backyard." I just smiled and said, "oh that's just Sweet Pea, she won't bite." She never travels farther than the barn... although one time we did come home from vacation and she had rooted up pig trails all in the front yard. As long as you feed her every other day, and make sure she has fresh water she just kinda hangs out. She is almost blind, so when you bring her food, you have to kind of yodel "sweeter peater" to her so she can follow your voice to her food. She's pretty cool.



These were our horses. Baylady, Bella, and Kid. We lost them all in terrible twist of fate accident. But they were our babies, our pets, and we miss them every day.


This was Pauline. She thought she was a horse. She liked to stand on top of the round bale of hay to eat... she was also bad about stealing Sweat Pea's food. She's gone now too.

Some days I want to just want to send them all packing... usually on mop days. When I've just swept, and spit polished the floor, and then Jason comes through the door and our fur covered posse with him, and they all run pell-mell through the house leaving tracks everywhere, and doggy fur tumble weeds come out from wherever they were hiding. The cats are weaving themselves in and out of my feet, hollering to be fed, and batting at the dogs because they are ornery like that. <--- That will take a lot out of you. But then everything calms down for the evening, everybody is fed and in as happy a mood as they will be in. The dogs are curled up on top of each other sleeping, the cats are in their respective laps, and for once Petra is allowing me to pet her, and it's just, nice. A houseful of pets, of family members, and everything that goes along with it, and yeah, it's good.

Crazy Book Lady

Day 5: Your First Love

I'm sure you probably expect me to write about my first boyfriend, or more appropriately, my husband.... although Jason changed my life and my heart in ways I never could have imagined, I will get to him in a later post.

My first love? Well, that's easy. Books.

I will read anything. anything. Or I will at least give it a go. For instance, I once read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.... it's a Stephen King novel. I read and read, waiting (hoping) on it to get better... it never did. I'm assuming it was one of those books that he must roll out on occasion to keep his publishers happy in between his major hits like Dream Catcher and The Green Mile. People buy these books, because hey! it's Stephen King so it has to be good, right? W.R.O.N.G. I was actually mad when I finished that book. Mad, not because it was over, but because I'd wasted my time on it. From what I understand the book was full of metaphors about survival and yada yada.... it was lost on this girl however. But I'm by no means trying to deter you from reading it, in fact, please do, then maybe you can clue me in on something I must have missed. My point is, is I will read anything. Food labels, receipts, good books, bad books, magazines, etc...

I don't know exactly when I caught on to reading, or what my first book was, but I know that every time I open the cover of a book, I am about to leave my world, and enter one entirely different. Every book I read I start off the same way. I read the blurb on the back, the information about the author if it's available, the book dedication, and then I jump on in.

One of my favorite parts of a book is that book dedication. Most of them are really simple. "To John".... yawn. But sometimes they are more.
One of my favorites is in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis

"To Lucy Barfield My Dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C.S. Lewis "

Um, how awesome is that?
And that taking it down from the shelf, and dusting it off part? Yeah, that's my favorite. Discovering a book I had forgotten about, opening it up and "revisiting" friends I had long ago met, and put to the back of my mind. I love that part.

Almost every book I own, is dog eared from my going back to them time and time again.
That being said, books are almost sacred to me. There's a scene in the movie The Day After Tomorrow, where the characters are in the library burning the books for heat (cringe!), and one character was holding/protecting the New York Public Library's copy of the Gutenberg Bible. When questioned about it, he says, "as far as I'm concerned, the written word is mankind's greatest achievement." Um, "true dat." If you have access to books, you have access to the world outside your own front door. Between a front and back cover are entire worlds so different from your own as to be almost beyond imagining.

If I don't have a book on the night stand I feel lost and sad. Jason could give me a book every birthday, anniversary, and Christmas of my life, and I would be A-OK with that. hint. hint.

Give me a new book and I am a happy girl...
Give me an afternoon in a bookstore, and I step through the doors and it's like the past, present, and future are swirling all around me, and I can barely contain myself. I have had to hold myself back on multiple occasions from doing a little jig.

I googled "book lady" to find a cutesy, representative picture of somebody who loves books as much as I do and this was the first picture that popped up....


Good Lord, please let that not be a foreshadowing of things to come... If I start wearing ribbon spools as earrings (among other things), I believe Jas will put me out.

Day 4

Day 4: A Habit That You Wish You Didn't Have

Okay, I'm going to make a confession. One of the worst habits I have is not calling people when I say I will. And I can just see all my friends nodding their heads and saying "I know that's right", right about now. I don't mean to not call, honest. I just get caught up in my daily goings-on, that it slips my mind. I'm also, NOT a phone talker, kind of person. like, not at all. But I should really, really do better about keeping in touch. I have a couple best friends that I don't see very often due to distance, that I also don't talk to often due to my "habit." Granted, in the day of social networking, email, twitter, etc... there are lots of ways of keeping up with people, but nothing it quite as good as hearing the voice of a dear sweet friend on the other end of the line. My friends are really patient with me, and I love 'em even more for that. I.must.do.better.


P.S. - I love love love my wedding dress, (it had polka dots!), but if we got married again, I'm pretty sure I'd pick a dress more like this....

ruffles. lace. touch of pearl beading. buttons. mosquito netting around the face...er... maybe not so much. did i say how much i love it? no? i love it. as in maybe I'll order it and wear it around the house, or grocery shopping, or whatev. I'm completely smitten by this dress.

Day 3 "A Good Friend Is Cheaper Than Therapy"

Day 3: Post A Picture Of You & Your Friends....

After putting this together, I realized I don't have pictures with a lot of my friends. Will need to remedy this situation very quickly.