Childhood Wishes...

When I was a kid there was nothing much more exciting or magical than getting the Sears Christmas Wish Book in the mail.  I would spend hours and hours poring through those catalog pages, dreaming and folding and circling and hoping and wishing and deciding which items I realistically thought I could get Santa to bring me each year...

And while Santa was always good to me and never left me empty-handed or in a state of disappointment, there were a few things I asked for or sometimes only secretly wished for (because I knew hell would have to freeze over first) that I never did get...


My own place.  And by my own place, I mean my very own playhouse in the backyard.  A place I could play with my dolls, read my books, listen to my records, play board games and just hang with my bff.  You know? A little pink house...

A genie bottle/magical powers/magic wand! Maybe I watched too many old episodes of I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched but I had all sorts of plans for the day Santa finally delivered this one.  I was going to rule the world.  Or at least just marry Shaun Cassidy.

Miniature horse.  I'm pretty sure this was one of those wishlist items I placed in the when hell freezes over category and never actually asked for but oh, how I wanted one! And I've never completely gotten over this one... The cuteness overwhelms me!

My own phone/private line in my room. Because what the heck was a cell phone or even a cordless phone? If you wanted phone privacy, you pulled that curly cord as far as you could, sneaked around the corner, and closed that door shut tight on that sucker.  And if someone else was talking on the phone and there was something you just had to talk to your bestie about right that minute?  You were just S.O.L!  

Pink carpet.  I had daydreams about pink carpet...

Persian or Siamese cat. While I've always been an animal of all kinds lover, when I was a kid I was obsessed with cats and while we did have a few when I was very young, once they were gone we never got another one.  But I always wanted me a big ol' fluffy Persian or an exotic Siamese of my very own.  I wonder what the Darling wieners would think of that? Hmm...

  
  

















Swatch watch. I can't really say why it is I didn't get one of these because they were all the rage for a time in the 80s and I remember wanting one or two or three (to stack on my arm) pretty bad at one point.  Maybe I had asked for a lot of other stuff from Santa that year or maybe I didn't realize I wanted it until after Christmas... Who knows?  But I never had one...

A pool. Georgia summers were hot and running through the sprinklers just didn't satisfy our urge to get wet.  And I'm sure this wasn't something I ever thought to ask Santa for in the month of December but it definitely stands out in my mind as something I always longed for.  My best friend and I once had the genius idea to build one ourselves by stacking bricks along the edges of the patio.  I don't think you have to ask how that turned out...

  
A puppy in my stocking. Some things never change!

Snow on Christmas Day. Living my entire life in the south, I never did get that one. Until last year... Last year, at the age of 39, that wish was finally delivered and I don't think it could have been any more magical had it happened thirty years earlier...

   
And to me, that is a perfect example of how the best, most cherished gifts of all are always those that no amount of money could ever buy...  


Though I would jump for joy and shout with glee if I woke up Christmas morning to find one of those itty bitty horses in my backyard or another li'l wiener dog in my stocking... 


I'm just sayin'.   


*This post is part of Writer's Workshop at Mama's Losin' It.

Weekend Highlights...

Friday night we watched the new Arthur.  I didn't expect it to be as good as the first one with Dudley Moore and in my opinion it was not, but it was entertaining enough.  I was just confused about Hobson being a female nanny because seems I recall he was a male butler in the original.  And as I was typing that I suddenly recalled some sort of dream I had last night about the Batmobile that Arthur kept drunk driving around town in.  I'm just thankful Russell Brand was not in the dream because that would disturb me greatly.  


Saturday afternoon I met my longtime best friend, Michelle, for lunch and shopping and we both agreed that we need to get our act together and plan to do that sort of thing more often since we only live an hour's drive from each other.  Because at the rate we've been going, you'd think there was an ocean between us.   


Don't you just love the comfort of being in the presence of an old friend though?  We've been friends for twenty five years now and although we've been a couple of slackers about getting together for the past couple of years, it's always as if no time has passed at all when we do. There are never any awkward getting reacquainted moments or uncomfortable silences.   


One minute we are talking about our kids and the next minute we are somehow on the subject of the double date we went on with the likes of Beavis and Butt-head back when we were fifteen, which was way before those characters ever showed up on our t.v. screens. And since I try to keep this blog here PG, I won't go into any details but let's just say that it could not have gone any worse had we gone on a double date with the actual Beavis and Butt-head. The memory never ceases to make me laugh all these years later so it wasn't a total waste of our fifteen year old time and energy.  

Which reminds me of the leaf-blowing Charlie said he allowed Dracen to do Saturday.  He proclaimed it Leaf Getting-Up Day for the three of them and although they weren't exactly thrilled about the idea, their ears perked up when they found out they could get paid for the sincerity of their efforts.  


Dracen weighs all of 60 pounds soaking wet yet he insisted he be allowed to work the leaf blower too and according to Charlie he stuck his lip out, turned his palm over and up in his but...but.. life is so unfair! pose, proclaimed that he was just as capable as his big brother, then crossed his arms over his chest and plopped his butt down until he was allowed to prove himself worthy.  


I just wish Charlie had gotten a picture because the description he gave of him blowing the same ten leaves around the driveway for twenty minutes with that big leaf blower strapped on his back and hanging down past his knees is a sight I truly hate I missed.  Being the little brother does have its advantages because if there's one thing that boy is, it's determined. He believes there is nothing in this world his big brother can do that he can't.  


Yesterday morning at church he finally got the opportunity to take over a duty that his brother recently let go of by being an acolyte for the very first time.  I think Charlie said it best when he said, "He actually got the chance to play with fire without someone telling him  No."  

And I guess when you think about it, life just doesn't get much better than that.  

Where the Green Grass Grows...

Since his cell phone and iPad privileges have been temporarily suspended for the past couple of days for his behavior in Language Arts, we've been seeing a lot more of Devin.  It's like I have my other son back!  I watched from the sunroom windows yesterday afternoon as he and and his little brother wrestled on the trampoline, fully expecting a fight to break out any minute when someone was accidentally hurt. 


But it never happened. 


They just kept wrestling, laughing, and being boys until they finally came inside where Dracen tried to convince me he had frost bite.  And I tried to convince him that while I didn't doubt his feet were really cold, he did not have frost bite because it was 48 degrees outside. Which by the way, is entirely too cold for these parts this time of year.  And it is in the 20s this morning! Brr.


After supper last night we all played a game of Yahtzee.  That I won.  Woot! But just for the record, I would never actually say "Woot" out loud. And later, when Charlie and I were watching t.v. in the living room, we were ambushed by a couple of ninjas who both could benefit from a lesson in stealthiness, especially the little one. 


It reminded us of the good ol' days, back when it was a pretty common thing to see two boys whiz by you in full costume.


Then Devin "hid" under the bed as I read to Dracen at bedtime.  As if I didn't know he was under there. Will they ever learn to stop underestimating my super intuitive mom powers? After the battle of getting the Idea Man (Charlie's new nickname for Dracen) tucked cozily into his bed for the night, Devin actually sat with us in the living room until his bedtime.  I swear I may never give his stuff back!


Because it is really nice to have him back.  


I've been feeling lately like it's all just happening too fast...like time is getting by me and there's nothing I can do to stop it.  I catch myself thinking about how Devin will have his driver's license in just four years and how Dracen (my baby!) will be in middle school when that happens and I just want to shout to the heavens, "Slow Down! Pleeease! Just Slow Down!"  


But that is the one thing none of us have ever figured out how to do, isn't it? To slow down time. 


When we're younger we just can't seem to get it to go by fast enough as we continually anticipate and count down the days until we can get our license, graduate high school, finish college, land our dream job, get married, have kids, struggle as we try to figure out how to get through the cruelties and storms that life deals us and to just.be.happy.  


I used to be one of those people who always saw the grass as being so much greener on the other side of that fence but I know now that I wouldn't want any other grass than that which God has so graciously given me. 


Because it's my grass. 


And while I sometimes wish I could keep it just the way it is right now, before the changing seasons alter it once again, I know that I can't do that. Not even with my super intuitive mom powers. So instead I'm going to keep nurturing it, appreciating it and loving it for what it is right now because I know that it will change again tomorrow.  


But I also know that no matter what, it will always be the greenest grass I know.  

Some Things I've Done

Last week Mama Kat asked us to make a list of 22 things we've never done.  So I did.  This week she asked us to make a list of 22 things we have done.  So I did.


In my 40.5 years I have...


1. Set foot in Tangier, Morocco.  

2. Eaten eel.  By mistake. While stepping outside my comfort zone to try sushi.  Eww. Never again! 


3. Caught an eel. By mistake.  While deep sea fishing. Sea sickness is wretched and horrid.  Never again!


4. Worn big hair, big glasses and big earrings.  At the same time.

5. Flown over The Grand Canyon in a helicopter.


6. Spent the night in a refrigerator box.


7. Seen Steel Magnolias and Sleepless in Seattle so many times that I can and frequently do quote all the characters word for word.  


8. Been to the British Virgin Islands.

9. Flown first class.  But not on my dollar.    


10. Broken my right clavicle bone.


11. Been to Spain. 

12. Eaten dinner outside at Times Square.

13. Swam with stingrays in Grand Cayman.  Twice.


14. Fed a giraffe.

15. Worked for a large corporation.


16. Been self-employed.


17. Been a stay home mom.


18. Baited my own hook with a worm and camped out on a riverbank.  I'm not a total girly girl.


19. Held a snake.  Briefly. Very briefly. 

20. Worn hammer pants. And not as a joke either.  


21. Seen the tailless monkeys atop the Rock of Gibraltar.

22. Known much Love and Laughter.

Things I Heard A Lot When I Was Growing Up...

1. Hurry up!  You're not going to a fashion show! (I had to get that hair curled, teased and sprayed to perfection)


2. Put something on your feet before you catch pneumonia. (This one never took because I still go barefoot year round in the house and sometimes even outside to get the mail in the dead of winter.) 


3. What's the matter?  Cat got your tongue? (I never did figure out who this cat was or what he'd want with my tongue.)

4. I could ride to town on that lip, it's stuck out so far! (When I was pouting) 


5. Oh law, we better call the ambulance before she bleeds to death! (I tended to overreact a little..okay a lot...when I got hurt, especially if blood was spilling....or trickling )  


6. Gah!  Don't let that dog lick you in the face! 

7. If you don't let me clean those ears out, I'm going to have to take you to the doctor and let him clean them out.  You could grow potatoes in those things!  (I think I may have actually said this a time or two to the boys...I know, I know...Eww!)  


8. I hope you aren't swallowing any of those seeds because you know a watermelon vine will grow out of your belly button if you do, right?  (I was extremely gullible because I remember being really worried this was going to happen so I was extra careful not to swallow any of those seeds and if I did, I worried about it for days)


9. What are you doing?!  Don't you know it's bad luck to open an umbrella in the house?!


10. Be careful not to break that mirror.  You'll have seven years bad luck if you do. (I remember counting up the years every time I broke one to figure out what age I'd be when my bad luck would finally be over.)


11. Your hair is a rat's nest. Come here and let me brush those tangles out.


12. Why are these clothes all over the floor?!  I can't tell what's clean and what's dirty!  This place is a pigsty!


13. Don't ever let somebody sweep under your feet or you'll never get married.


14. You can't get back in that water yet.  It hasn't been an hour since you ate.  You'll get cramps.  (I really didn't want those, whatever they were, so I watched that clock until my hour was up!)


15. Don't eat those wild strawberries.  They're poisonous.

16. You're sitting way too close to that t.v.  Move back before you ruin your eyes!


17. You better be careful or your face is gonna freeze like that.


18. If you don't let me clip those toenails they're going to get ingrown and the doctor will have to cut them out.  (No wonder I had such a fear of doctors!)

19. You can't go outside with that wet head.  You'll catch your death of cold!


20. What do you say?  ("Thank you." I say, "Thank you.")  




What did you hear a lot of when you were growing up?

What I Love About You Monday...Growing Up Edition

Friday night I had a dream (a nightmare, really) that I was eighteen again and had the chance to do it all over.  I felt completely wigged out, overwhelmed, and wanted nothing more than to go back to my forty year old self.  


I was walking with a faceless, nameless someone through what I think was a gymnasium while discussing my options and I still couldn't think of any one thing I really wanted to do differently. I didn't want a second chance and was relieved to wake up and realize that it was all just a dream and that I was actually still in the year 2011.  


And I don't think it takes a genius, a dream dictionary, or a shrink to interpret that one.... 


I want to keep on being me. 


And that's a good thing.  


I think growing older gets a bad rap.  And while I realize that I still have quite a few milestone birthdays yet to hit, I'm finding that I am growing more fond of me as the years roll by.  I like the woman I am now, at forty, a little more than the one I was at thirty and a whole lot more than the baby faced one I was at twenty.  

So today, for this edition of What I Love About You Monday, I think I'll list a few of the things I have come to love about growing older/up...

~The valuable life lessons I've learned that could have never been taught in a classroom or by reading a book.  

~The thinking about something that seems to have only happened just a few years ago and being hit with the realization that it was more like twenty years ago.  It doesn't really make me feel old.  It makes me feel that I have acquired a true past...a history...and the wisdom to know which things worked and which ones didn't.

~The ability to stay home on a Friday or Saturday night and feeling perfectly happy and content instead of like I'm missing out on all the excitement and fun that is surely being had elsewhere in the world without me.

~The knowing when to speak up and when to keep my mouth shut. (at least most of the time anyway)

~The realization that while traveling the world is a wonderful experience (and wanting to do lots more of it), there is no place like home and it has always, and most likely forever will be, my most favorite place to be.   

~The comfort I feel in my own skin that I just didn't feel when I was younger.  I am much more forgiving and accepting of myself now and have stopped trying to make my body be something it was not meant to be.  

~The way I have learned to forgive by realizing that nobody is perfect and holding onto grudges only hurts myself.  

~The ability to relate to so many different people on so many different levels because I have been where they are.  

~The wisdom to know that sometimes things just have nothing to do with me, personally, being able to suck it up, put it behind me, hold my head high and carry on.  It has taken me a long time to get here. 

~The good memories....so many priceless memories that far outweigh the bad and that I hope to only continue to add to and to never, ever lose...

Where I'm From...

One of the writing prompts Mama Kat presented this week was a bit different than anything I've tried my hand at before.  She challenged us to write a Where I'm From poem using a template (I've included it at the bottom of the post)...

Where I'm From

I am from a little blue suitcase, 

from Nestle's Quik

 and a quilted pallet on the floor of the den

I am from the happy yellow bike 

holding the shaggy white poodle with a fancy French name

 in the basket on the front

I am from the tall pine trees in the big green yard, 

 the sweet honeysuckle vines and dogwoods,
and the kudzu climbing the trees across the street
 and the tall end of the long brick ranch with the peeling gutters 

I am from new pajamas every year on Christmas Eve

 and big blue eyes with subtle grey specks

from Paul and Becky and Ollie Mae  

I am from the tenacious brokenhearted

and the try, try agains

From the By cracky!

and the Wake up! Wake up, you sleepy head! 

 Wake up! Wake up, get outta bed!   

I am from Just as I am, without one plea

and soul-saving Sundays at the Calvary Baptist Church

I’m from a cotton mill
 with a silver creek running through it,

 a river with a levee,

fresh fried okra and tomatoes from the garden

and sweet iced tea with the pintos and cornbread


from the stroke that left my great-grandmother 
(a small woman we ironically called Big Mama)
 unable to speak the words of love she so desperately
wanted to say each time she saw me and shoved 
 the green bills into my tiny hands
and the cancer that took her daughter (my grandmother)
at the age of fifty five...


In my garage is a grey plastic tote
packed to the brim with Kodak snapshots,
 Polaroids, portraits from Olan Mills Studios
and years of public school


I am from that tote,
that grey tote filled with the memories
of an introverted girl with big blue eyes and pigtails
with four yellow walls and a white canopy bed,
and a love for all things four-legged and furry...


and I am honored to be her future.

Below is the template. I encourage everyone to give this a try even if you don't have a blog...

I am from _______ (specific ordinary item), from _______ (product name) and _______.

I am from the _______ (home description… adjective, adjective, sensory detail).

I am from the _______ (plant, flower, natural item), the _______ (plant, flower, natural detail)

I am from _______ (family tradition) and _______ (family trait), from _______ (name of family member) and _______ (another family name) and _______ (family name).

I am from the _______ (description of family tendency) and _______ (another one).

From _______ (something you were told as a child) and _______ (another).

I am from (representation of religion, or lack of it). Further description.

I’m from _______ (place of birth and family ancestry), _______ (two food items representing your family).

From the _______ (specific family story about a specific person and detail), the _______ (another detail, and the _______ (another detail about another family member).

I am from _______ (location of family pictures, mementos, archives and several more lines indicating their worth).

Dexter...The Wiener Dog Outlaw

Y'all have heard me talk a lot about the Darling Dachsies, Brisco "Big Boy" and Charlene "Li'l Bit", and about Dixie Dog the Dachshund who was such a big part of my life for so many years.  But I have not spent much time talking about Dexter Dog, also a Dachshund (surprise!). 


Dexter was a Dappled Dachshund (chocolate merle) and the best surprise gift I have ever received.  Dixie Dog was five years old when Darin and Devin came home with Dexter, a tiny puppy, as a Mother's Day gift in 2001.  My heart melted into a big ol' pile of mush when that tiny flop-eared pup got out of the truck and marched up to me with his proud little head held high.  Dixie Dog was not exactly thrilled about her new roommate but eventually she whooped him into submission he won her over.  


Dexter had a bit of a wild hair and he wanted so much to be the alpha dog, a title Miss Dixie was not about to surrender.  Dixie never left the yard.  She knew the boundaries and stuck to them.  Dexter...not so much.  He went next door and barked at the neighbors when they were in the yard and ran circles around them while I tried to catch him, he was known to bite at the shoes and ankles of new people who came to the house and jump up in a chair at the table and eat your food right off your plate if you turned your back for too long.  


But he was also a very sweet and loving little dachsie who, like most all dachsies, could steal your heart right out from under you. If I held him or put him in the bedroom until the new people were seated in the house I could then let him out and he would love them to pieces.  


After Darin's accident though he became a little harder to handle. I believe he felt a little lost (well, all of us did) without the person he saw as the leader of his pack and thought it his utmost duty and honor to protect his family. And to him that meant biting our neighbor's ankles as she tried to take her daily walk.  


I was struggling.  With grief.  With caring for a baby and a four year old on my own.  With life as I knew it.  We didn't live on a busy street and usually he'd go right out, do his business and come right back. 


Well this particular day, I let him out and then went to tend to my crying baby when I heard him barking like mad. I went to the door to see him at the top of the driveway and the neighbor jumping around.  I yelled at him and she yelled back at me, "Do you know your dog BITES?!" 


Ohhh.....crap! 


I was between a rock and a hard place.  He tended to get more brave if I was with him so my fear was that if I walked up there he would only bite her again.  I decided to make my way up there and managed to wrangle him in though I think he did get a couple of more nips in first.  She was gracious.  She really was.  She, after all, knew what I was going through.  She just wanted to know if he had had all his shots which, thank goodness, he had.  


I apologized profusely, took my bad little wiener in the house and went on about my day which consisted of running some errands.  Later that afternoon when I picked the boys up at my mother-in-law's, my sister-in-law (who was there picking up her kids), informed me that the neighbor (who worked with her...it's a small town!) had come to see  their nurse just to get her bites checked out because she was actually off that day.  


And the nurse informed her that she had no other choice but to report it to the police because there was a law stating that if someone came to her with a dog bite, she had to report it. Well, my nerves did not need this!  


I got home to find a police officer's card stuck in my front door.  He had written... your dog bite a person please call me.  I remember because the fact that he wrote bite instead of bit and did not capitalize or punctuate really got under my skin. 


So I was a good citizen and called the police department to be told that I would need to come on down to the station to show proof of his rabies vaccination and to sign a form that stated I agreed to keep him quarantined for a few days.  I honestly think he was trying to fight back laughter over the fact of the matter... this tiny little wiener dog had been reported for unruly conduct.    


I  wasted no time having my backyard fenced in, which he loathed, but it had to be done.  


Dexter Dog got sick that Fall.  The vets determined he had an autoimmune disease, Hemolytic Anemia, and despite all the efforts of the animal hospital team and all the money I spent, he died about three days later.  I was, of course, devastated.  He was only three and a half years old.  And that was seven years ago this month.


But still to this day we laugh about little Dexter Dog stories, especially that one about the time he got in trouble with the law!

Where Were You?

Where were you when Kennedy was shot?  


I remember hearing people ask one another that question a lot when I was growing up and wondering how it was that every single person who was alive then and over a certain age could recall vivid details of exactly where they were and what they were doing on that sad, tragic day in American History.  


Because that horrific event took place nearly eight years before I  took my first breath in the world and I really couldn't recall any memory that vividly and especially not one that I shared with the better part of the world's population. Now I know it was because I had not ever experienced anything as equally tragic and shocking at that point in my life. 


I wish I could still say that...


September 11, 2001 changed that for me as it did for so many of us. I didn't personally know any of the innocent persons who lost their lives that day and at that time I could not even imagine what their families and friends must be going through because I had not yet lost a loved one so close to me and so suddenly and tragically.  


It was a rainy Tuesday morning here and I had just dropped little two year old Devin off at his morning preschool and was pulling into the parking lot of the florist when I heard my favorite morning radio show hosts, Bob and Sheri, announce breaking news of a plane hitting one of the twin towers in New York. There was still much confusion at this point but they were beginning to speculate that it was done on purpose and by terrorists?! 


How could this be? Surely they were mistaken.  I had just been there in those buildings three years earlier while on a business trip to New Jersey. We drove over to the city one evening and had a drink at On Top Of The World which was on the top floor of one of the towers.  


Dana, Shirley and I watched the coverage on the tiny black and white t.v. that I believe Shirley brought with her to the shop.  We watched as black smoke billowed out of the north tower and then as  the south tower was hit and on and on as the Pentagon was hit, a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania and those massive buildings that were surely still occupying hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans collapsed into a massive cloud of darkness.


I recall, for the first time in my lifetime as an American citizen, feeling completely vulnerable, violated, infuriated, afraid, uncertain, unsettled and unsafe. It was a strange and unfamiliar feeling.  And I didn't like it.  


The world seemed to barely move along in slow motion for the rest of the day and there was this sort of invisible, yet overbearing and angry haze of uncertain doom and darkness thickening the air, making it difficult for all of us to breathe and carry on with our daily activities.  So we just sat in the eerie, quiet stillness of no ringing phones and no walk-in customers staring at that tiny t.v. and trying desperately to make sense of what had just happened to our nation.  


I struggled that afternoon at closing time as to whether or not to continue on to my class at the gym as normal and in the end I went but my heart was just not in it and on the way home as I continued to listen to the coverage on the radio, I broke down and cried so hard I could barely see to drive.  


And then I prayed...


Prayed for the victims and their families, prayed for all those still missing, prayed for our leaders and our nation, prayed for peace, understanding and strength...  I just prayed and cried and prayed and cried all the way home.  


That evening I continued to watch the horrific coverage with Darin and little Devin who kept questioning why dose big airpwanes hit da tall buildings.  


In the following days and weeks we made countless red, white and blue ribbons and bows for customers wanting to show their support and patriotism by wearing them, tying them to their cars, mailboxes and front doors.  You couldn't look anywhere without seeing an American flag flying proudly high nor could you turn on the radio without hearing songs like The Star Stangled Banner,  America, My Country 'Tis of Thee, or God Bless America.  

"You can be sure that the American spirit will prevail over this tragedy."
--Colin Powell

There was no line drawn in the sand between Democrats and Republicans, no harsh words of criticism directed at our president, and no complaining about our government and the taxes we all hate to pay.  For awhile, we were all just grateful to be alive and proud to be Americans. 


Of course that all eventually faded away as our nation began to heal and struggle to rebuild and create a new sense of normal as we adjusted to a heightened, strengthened level of national security.  We were beginning to feel safe in our world again so we relaxed and began to take things...our freedom and our rights... for granted once more. 


But ask anyone alive today, over the age of fifteen or sixteen (Devin is now twelve and has no memory of the day), where they were on that Tuesday, ten years ago today, and a detailed account they will no doubt be able to give and they too will recall how wonderful it felt to be an American surrounded by other Americans who all loved their country so deeply in those following days and weeks.


We must never forget...


But how could we possibly?  


Where were you when the world stopped turning?  

Pausing Life for a Moment...

Today I was honored to Pause life for a Moment and guest post over at JDaniel4's Mom.   She became a wife and stay home mom to one little boy after nearly 20 years of teaching. She's a wonderful storyteller and I know you will enjoy her blog as much as I do. And I just love the idea of pausing life for moment and giving thanks for the blessings that too often get overlooked in the busy work of our everyday lives. 


And one way I love to do that is through photos...


I love photos.  Always have.  I love taking them, looking at them, framing them, showing them off.  But I think what I love most about them is the way they magically capture and freeze a moment in time and how I can dig them out (or flip through them with a click of a mouse these days) and instantly be whisked back to another place and time in my life.  


Some of them remind me of being a child....in the 70's. Like this one, for instance, conjures up the fond memory of the excitement and anticipation I felt on Friday afternoons in elementary school because I knew it meant I'd soon be seeing my dad, stepmom, Lynne, and stepsister, Stephanye...

We called these our Hee Haw pants!

Then there are those that remind me of my adolescent, coming of age years in the 80's...

Sportin' some helmet hair and high waist shorts at Six Flags Over Georgia

My big hair flag days

Photography Club, senior year of high school 

The ones from the 90's and early 2000's that remind me of becoming an adult, a wife, a mother...

He's thinking about it 

Bele Chere Festival in Asheville, 2001

Then there are those  that were taken in the first couple of years after tragedy and loss struck our lives.  I look at them sometimes and  remember how much strength, faith and prayer it took to get through the days and how we gradually learned how to live again, smile again, laugh again...

sweet smiling faces

Pawpaw Paul and Dracen at the beach

Christmas 2004

There are those that remind me of finding love again and of becoming the family we are today...

"Piggy ride backs"!

Dracen snapped this shot on our one year dating anniversary, 12/07 
(that's Devin's hand and camera getting his shot!)

June 28, 2008

And then there are those most recent ones that I will find priceless in just a few years (okay, probably not even that long) because they will remind me of the life we are living right here, right now, today...

first day of 3rd grade!

first day of 7th grade...middle school!!!

And, of course, there are so many oodles and oodles of others that I couldn't possibly get through in a day, much less a blog post, but knowing they are there at my fingertips...or buried in the bottom of a plastic tote under a pile of clothes in my closet...is just one of those little things that make my heart smile. 


What is something that makes your heart smile?  And in what ways do you slow down and pause life for a moment? 


**Please don't forget to click over and read my guest post at JDaniel4's Mom! :)