Isn't it funny that leading up to and during a Presidential election that the actual sitting President is almost forgotten?  I think it would make a funny interview-on-the-street sort of thing to find out how many uninformed people think that Mr. Obama has already moved into the White House.  However, I will say that the Democratic campaign mentioned President Bush more than I've ever heard during a campaign....but they were usually referring to Senator McCain.  I think it was a nickname.

Well, while this election has evoked many emotions on my part, the one I'm focusing on today is nostalgia.  You see, while our current President's approval ratings plummeted over the past couple of years, he still had a soft spot in our hearts here at Hilltop Academy.  Did we agree with everything he ever did or said?  Of course not.  Yet we admired the man that, from almost the get-go, was faced with unique and extremely difficult circumstances and held his ground...not to mention his faith.

Back when W. was just the governor of Texas and vying for the Republican nomination in early 2000, we got the chance to meet him.  We were living in South Carolina at the time and heard that he would be speaking at a location not far from our house.  We were on our way out of town that day, so we hemmed and hawed whether we should take the time to go hear him.  We finally decided that it was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet and show support for a potential future President, so we went.  After he spoke, there was a chance to shake his hand and get pictures.  Again, we wondered if it was worthwhile to stand in line and fight the crowd.  Oh, and have I mentioned yet that I was almost eight months pregnant at the time with Harrison?  Standing in line was not necessarily an attractive option for me.  What sealed the deal was that three year-old Annaleigh was wearing a tee-shirt that Big D just got for her on a business trip to Washington that said, "Future President," and the scrapbooker in me could not pass up the poignant photo op.

We made it through the line, and here was the result of our efforts....

Our only regret looking back is that we didn't have a better camera at the time.  It was a 35 mm point-and-shoot, and unfortunately the focus was more on the man over W's shoulder.  After we took our shot, as W was shaking Big D's hand, we pointed out Annaleigh's shirt to him.  Then several from the media began shooting pictures as well.  Mr. Bush laughed, and as some music came on from the background, he danced around a little with her.  As he handed her back to me, he whispered in my ear, "The Lord only knows where these pictures will end up."  He also signed a copy of his campaign book and gave one to us that said, "To Annaleigh--Another Future Pres!  ~George W. Bush"

So, Mr. President, if you ever stumble upon this blog in your free time, just know that we loved ya', and remember...even Abraham Lincoln's approval rating had bottomed out.  Only time can tell how you will ultimately be remembered.

Do you have a flashback for us this weekend?  Leave a link below and share it with us....

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Pet-wise we are having a rough month.  As I've already shared, on October 3, we had to have our 18 year-old cat, Baxter, put to sleep.  That was a very difficult thing to do, and I still get choked up when I think about him.

Literally the day of that fateful vet visit, I noticed that our dog Bridget was sort of winking one of her eyes (see above pic).  I hoped that she had just scratched it or something and went on dealing with our dying cat predicament.  Well, it didn't get better.  It just kept getting worse, and then to make matters worse, we came home from church about a week later to find her limping badly and unable to put any weight on one of her back legs.  Lord only knows what she was doing while we were in church to injure her leg in such a way!  For a leggy, lanky boxer, it was awkward at best trying to get her outside to potty and drink and eat from her food bowls.

Well, we have now been to the vet twice, trying to find out what's wrong.  So far, they are treating it as a soft tissue injury, and we're on our second anti-inflammatory to try to give her some relief.  So far, she's still hobbling.  Her eye, which was scratched and infected, is, thankfully, better (thanks to me wrestling her to the ground three times a day and squeezing some ointment into it....sorry no pictures of 8-month pregnant me rolling on the ground with my 65 pound dog in a headlock).

Things are different around here.  Bridget has been lying almost constantly on her bed.  Usually she follows us around wherever we go.  She always meets us at the door with a toy dangling from her mouth.  She excitedly twists herself into a crescent when we have guests.  Now she simply stays on the bed, perks her ears up a bit, and thumps her little stub tail just as fast as she can.  I guess it's the best she can do.  The place where I find her absence the strangest is in the bathroom.  For the first time in over a decade, I can actually relieve myself in total and complete privacy.  The kids stopped following me into the bathroom years ago....but not Bridget.  She would follow me in and sit not too very far from the potty.  Every. Single. Time.  The bathroom has been a cold, lonely place the past couple of weeks.

The kids have been helpful.  They faithfully give her water from a little medicine dropper (please ignore the mess in the background...we were painting our bathroom that weekend and had some miscellaneous things stacked in the living room)....

and they are even willing to share their dessert with the invalid.

Bridget's injury has made me think of her more active days, especially of the days she first came to us....

Annaleigh was only 18 months old when we got her, and Harrison didn't exist yet.  It was interesting having two babies at the same time...

Although Bridget has been a great dog for us, she was a H-A-R-D puppy....and she was a puppy for exactly two years.  I've never come so close to killing a living thing (besides bugs).

Once when she was about a year old, she nearly killed me.  We used to keep our kennel in our bedroom.  We had had guests over, and she knew it.  When I went to let her out, she thought the people were still there and was in a hurry to go see them.  I had slipped my hand under her collar, trying to get her under control when she took off.  I lost my balance and fell, but she kept going and drug me clear into our living room....after violently smashing my face into the door frame.  I didn't speak to her for two weeks.  As a matter of fact, I think my blood pressure is rising just thinking about it.  Excuse me a minute, while I go kick her right now.....just kidding.  I'll just flick her nose or something.

Bridget has never been much of a chewer thankfully, but one thing she can't resist is soap.  It's a really weird thing.  As a puppy, she once consumed  half a bottle of pink Barbie bubblebath.  Once at Ma and Pa's house, she ate an entire box of dryer sheets....and left the box basically unharmed.  She will stand and jump for the bubbles that the kids blow in the backyard for hours.

Another thing she can't resist is a full trashcan.  Even as an old gal, if the trash is full, she won't knock it over, but she will inspect the top for any little morsels.  She once swallowed an entire corncob.  We only know she did this because she threw it up several days later...still nearly whole.

Well, if you are of the bent to pray for animals now and then, we'd appreciate one for our Bridget.  This is a hard time for us to be dealing with this as we're trying our best to get ready for Peanut's arrival.

I've had some depressing flashbacks of late.  Sorry.  I'll try to come up with something a little cheerier next time.  Or perhaps you have something happy to share with us....?  Sign in below with the link, and let us all in on it!

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It's with a really heavy heart that I write this Flashback Friday, for last Friday our family had to say goodbye to our long-lived cat, Baxter.

Baxter, as I've said before, was about 18 years old.  Over the summer Baxter's appetite seemed to decrease some, and he shed a few pounds.  As a neutered male indoor cat that was basically inactive most of the time, he was...well..he was fat.  At his heaviest he weighed around 23 pounds.  The last time I took him to the vet about a year ago, he weighed 17.  I would say that over the summer he'd lost 3-4 pounds, but in the past couple of weeks, he had pretty much stopped eating, and when we took him in last Friday, he weighed a mere 8 pounds and could barely stand.

We're not really sure what was wrong with him beyond just old age, but whatever it was, took over fast.  I mean I just photographed him on a skateboard a couple of weeks ago!  My main goal was to prevent any further suffering because he had been such a good pet for us for so many years, so we made the difficult and tearful decision to have him put to sleep.  About a year or so ago, I blogged about his history (in an embellished sort of way), which you can read about here.

It was just me and Baxter those last few minutes, and honestly I don't know how aware of his surroundings he was by that point, but I am thankful that I was there to stroke him and tell him I loved him as the life breathed out of him.

I know this may seem sappy and emotional and over-the-top to some of you, but I can't think of any better way to spend a Flashback Friday than to look back over the last fifteen years that Baxter was a part of our lives....

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Ah, yes, folks....we have a trilogy here at Hilltop Academy!  Our third generation of banana spider (we think!) has landed, and of course, I have no choice but to chronicle its existence here, even though I've said many times that I will never blog about spiders again.  I don't know why you people ever listen to me.

Look at this....

Behold, our third banana spider to annually build a web on our front porch!  This one is much smaller than the other two have been, thus we think it might be male.  The other two we know were female because after they kicked the bucket, they left us the gift of their egg sacs.  This one also has some different behaviors than the other two.  For one, it has shed its skin twice.  That's what the creepy skeletal thing is below.  Believe it or not, I actually got a picture of it doing this the other day...

Is that not the freakiest?!  Annaleigh was sure it was dead, but after he dangled there for a while, he crawled back up onto his web, located conveniently right outside our living room window, a bigger and better spider.  Since we suspect he's of the male persuasion, the kids have been calling him He-lob.  Our first banana spider we dubbed Shelob (from the Lord of the Rings) due to her gargantuan size.  And speaking of our first arachnid, here she is....

If you like creepy bedtime stories, you can read about her stay with us here and here.

Then the next year, her possible daughter, moved in.  We just called her Spidey...

Her tale is not nearly so interesting, but if you like, you can read about her here.

And then now we have the son/grandson...maybe.  I guess I better get out our nature handbooks and do a google image search, and find out what he is since that's what good home schoolers do.

Have any memories for us this week?  I know I forgot to give you advance notice that I would be "flashing" this week, but if you have something, please share!  Leave us a link, so we can all come read it....

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***I apologize for the late hour of this post.  If any of you were thinking of joining in, you have probably by now gone on to blog about bigger and better things.  I got up this morning at 5:30am to post this, only to discover that our internet service was down...again.  I've decided that I really hate Charter.***

Tomorrow is Annaleigh's 12th birthday.  12th?!  Now, c'mon, this is getting ridiculous.  How did that happen?

How does this cute, chubby little infant who is about to chew on my table leg....

...morph, seemingly overnight, into this cute, tall, slender pre-teen who is about to chew on some chicken fingers and fries that she made herself?

Please, someone, help.  If you know the formula for putting time in a bottle and slowing everything down, I need to know....f-a-s-t!  I will pay top-dollar!

I know we're basically half-way through Friday at this point (curses on you, Charter!!!), but if you still have a flashback post lingering around, please post a link below.... 

I also wanted to let you know that I will no longer be posting my Flashbacks every Friday.  I'm not sure if there will be any rhyme or reason to when I actually post them....I guess when the inspiration hits.  I will try to let you know through the week before I post one, so that you can plan to join in if you'd like.

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Ummm...basically it was an accident.  I never really intended to home school my children.  I had heard of it.  I had thought about it.  I had even done a little researching on it.  But I wasn't going to actually do it.

You see, both of the kids were born in South Carolina, and home schooling just wasn't done that much there then.  I only knew two home schooling families.  One was Big D's.  When we met, his mom was home schooling his two younger sisters, Rebecca and Susan, and both of them, while spending some time in private Christian schools as well, eventually graduated as home schoolers.  They were (and are!) bright young women and very non-weird, so I was mildly intrigued by their school experience, but at the same time I had no idea how to make it work for me.  Plus I was a college-degreed, state licensed educator, so I didn't believe in home schooling....right?

The other family I knew had a teenage son, who attended the Christian school where I taught for science class.   And he was weird...really weird.  I'm sorry, but he was.  I used to listen to my students berate him and laugh at him all the time.  And while that kid would have probably been just as weird if he had attended public school, I had my fears of the stigma, the wackiness that sort of lingered around home schooling.  And I'll be woman enough to admit that I wondered if my child would miss out on "stuff"...like eating in the school cafeteria, playing sports, going to prom.  I know...I know.  But then they were real fears.

Annaleigh's birthday is on September 6, and in 2001 was in every way bright enough to attend kindergarten.  We had decided that she would attend public school, since we lived in a good school district.  I was still going to remain a stay-at-home mom, so that I could chaperon field trips, bake cupcakes for her class and drive her to school so she wouldn't have to ride the bus.  Well, imagine the frustration when we found out that the cut-off to start school was a birthday before September 1.  She missed it by six days.  I even enquired into some private schools, but most went by the guidelines of whatever school district they happened to be in.

So, she just stayed at home with me, which was fine since I really wasn't trying to get rid of her or anything.  I just thought she was more than ready for school and would genuinely enjoy the experience.

Well, just a few short months later, Big D was laid off from his job, but was consequently offered a job at their corporate offices in Nashville, TN, so in October of 2001 we packed and moved because...well, we like to eat and all.  We weren't here long when I found out that Annaleigh could have started kindergarten here because their cut-off was a birthday of September 30.  Now, I felt like she was just missing out and would be by far the oldest kid in her class the following year.

But soon I started to discover a mighty strange thing....a lot of people home schooled here.  As a matter of fact, about 75% of our church was home schooling, and they were all basically normal.  I went to the library and checked out a bull-honkin' stack of books on the subject, and then I got on the Internet and read into the wee hours of the morning, and pretty much the next day I decided to home school Annaleigh for kindergarten.  Who cares if it was almost November by this point?  Who cares if I didn't know the first thing about purchasing curriculum?  Who cares if I couldn't identify the term umbrella school?  I just jumped in head first and never looked back.

In the state of Tennessee, kindergarten is non-compulsory, so I didn't register her anywhere.  I didn't buy any curriculum.  I just taught her stuff.  And we liked it so much that I kept her home for 1st grade too...and well, here we are seven years later, still home schooling.

I took the following pictures on our first "official" day of kindergarten...

Sorry that those are not the best shots.  I actually had to snap photos from my school scrapbook, and I was too lazy to even take them out of the page protectors.

What I found was that Annaleigh, having been home with me for the past five years, already possessed her basic kindergarten skills, so we just focused on some things that would help her for the next year, like handwriting and letter sounds.  By the end of the year, she was reading and doing simple math.

We also included some fun things, like hands-on history lessons...

Some basic science experiments...

Lots of crafts...

And regular Bible study, which usually included some type of drama.  Here's both of them, reenacting the Holy family at Christmas.  I think Harrison, at age 1 1/2, just thought it was fun to have a blanket wrapped around his head...

Annaleigh even went once a week to a Music Club with other kids...

But mostly, I just tried to encourage a love of learning in both of them.  I really desired for them both to explore and create to their heart's content.  Annaleigh decided that she wanted to be a drummer.  Well, a drum set was not to be at that point in time, so she found what she could in the kitchen and elsewhere and made her own set.  It was moments like this that really sealed the deal for me.

We've come a long way since that first year, when we would simply roll out of bed, and ask, "So, what should we learn today?".  But I hope that we haven't come so far with all of our books and schedules and such that we've lost our focus.  It's still my prayer that my kids will love to learn, that they will have a natural curiosity of God's creation and all that He provides for them, and that they can explore all these things in the safety and the nurture of their own homes and under the careful eyes and tutelage of the ones who know and love them best.  I thank God regularly that I had Annaleigh on September 6, or else our lives might have ended up very differently.

Do you want to flash back with us today?  How did you start home schooling?  Or maybe you'd just rather tells us why you once wore leg warmers over your jeans in 70 degree weather.  It's up to you.  Just come back and leave your link with Mr. Linky below so we can all come visit your blog!

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As a teenager I think, for the most part, I watched most of the typical teen movies.  I was a follower of the Brat Pack and saw everything that starred Molly Ringwald.  Every now and then I get a craving for one of those movies that I haven't seen for eons.  Most recently it was Sixteen Candles, so over the summer I ordered it from Netflix and watched it alone one night after everyone had gone to bed.  Again, I found that what amused and delighted you when you were 13, does absolutely nothing for you when you're 35.  I didn't laugh, but I did cry....over the hour and half that I wasted.  It won't fail though....in about two years I'll do the same thing with Pretty in Pink or The Breakfast Club.  Some deep-seeded need for nostalgia will rise up, and I won't be able to help myself.

There's one 80s teen movie, however, that is the exception in that it is fairly decent.  I can watch it whenever I want and not feel dumber because of it.  It's this one....

This movie actually may have changed the course of my life.  I saw this movie the summer of 1989, right before my senior year of highschool, with my then-boyfriend of about nine months or so.   I was totally blown away by John Cusack's character of Lloyd Dobler.  He was quirky and believable and smart.  And I kept thinking, "This is the same guy who plays one of Anthony Michael Hall's cohorts in Sixteen Candles?!"  It's no wonder he's one of the few 80s teen actors to go onto have a prolific career.

Anyway, I was sitting there in the theater, beside my boyfriend, when on the screen a couple's love story was playing out that made ours look like plain oatmeal.  I couldn't help it, but I was comparing.  I was measuring.  And I didn't think that so-and-so beside me was making the cut.  In the scene of the movie after the break-up, Lloyd goes to Dianne's house and holds up his boom box while a cultish Peter Gabriel song is playing into her open window.  My heart stopped.  I knew that so-and-so would never do that.  And I knew that whoever I was going to be with for the rest of my life just had to have that in him.  Just to make sure, I eventually broke up to see if he would.  He didn't.  He just kept trying to get back together in other boring ways, which I just found irritating.  This is the song, by the way, with scenes from the movie... 

See what I mean?  Kinda gets under your skin, doesn't it?

Personally, I'm thankful to that movie and to that boom-box-over-the-head song, because a year later I met Big D, who is in every way even better than Lloyd Dobler.  He is quirkier, funnier, smarter and can do the worm.  Thanks Mr. Cusack for opening my eyes to the greener pastures!

Would you like to join us in flashing back to another time, another place?  C'mon....it's fun!  Sign in with the link to your post below, so we can come share!

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To continue in my back-to-school theme for this week, I thought I would flash back to when I was a little one, carrying my Holly Hobbie backpack to my class.  I was actually looking for  the class picture from my first year teaching, 1994, of my 9th grade homeroom, but I can't find it anywhere, and I'm really fearing that it may be stuck in some book that's now on the shelves of an area Goodwill store.  Oh well....the purchaser of that book can have a laugh.

But in my searching, I ran across class picture after class picture of me and my classmates through the years, so I'm going to share a handful of them with you.

This is where it all began, my kindergarten class in Charleston, SC....

Sorry it's a little yellow, but I'm getting kinda old.  I'm the one on the far right, top row.  I attended kindergarten back in the day where we only went for half a day, and we didn't really learn all that much.  My main memory of it was playing Farmer in the Dell and me praying that I wouldn't be picked to be the wife or the cheese.  Because, after all, I never wanted to marry a farmer, and the cheese had to stand alone.

Here we are a few years later in 4th grade, North Chicago, IL....

I'm in the bottom right-hand corner.  Mrs. Sykes, by the way, was one of my favorite teachers of all time.  She was so energetic and fun and really cared about all of us.

Do you see the boy right smack in the middle of the bottom row?  Well, he lived across the street from me, and he was just about the meanest boy I've ever known.  As a matter of fact, my family made up a song about him, sung to the tune of "O Christmas Tree"....

O Steven Cook, O Steven Cook

Your ways are so unchanging.  (repeat 1x)

Not only mean when summer's here,

But also when 'tis cold and drear

O Steven Cook, O Steven Cook

Your ways are so unchanging.

We were kind of an odd family.  We still are.  I also made up a song once called "The Rocks of Evil" about Indiana Mimi (long story) and Debbles recently taught the darn thing to her boys who now sing it in public.

Here's my fifth grade class, also in North Chicago...

Poor Mr. Gilray.  He had a nervous breakdown around the second or third week of school and was out for nearly two months.  When he came back this class was totally out of control.  He must have good meds though because he remained rather calm through most of it.  He would occasionally pound this large petrified rock onto his desk, making everything on it jump about three inches into the air.  Once he got so mad that he took a vinyl record of Japanese haiku recordings that we were listening to and threw it across the room.  I'm not kidding.

Oh, and I'm the one smack in the middle wearing the lavender sweater and jeans.  I was in my no-skirt phase.  And see the boy on the far left, bottom row?  He was my boyfriend for about two weeks.  His name was Rafael. One day after school he had a friend ask me to be his girlfriend, and I said okay.  We then didn't speak to or look at each other again.  At the end of two weeks, the same friend told me that Rafael wanted to break-up, and I said okay.  He then repeated the same thing with my best friend Keely,the blond on the second row in the teal get-up.

Moving onto 7th grade and back to Charleston, SC...

I'm on the far right in the third row from the front, and is it just me, or did they have me in the wrong spot?  I'm like a head shorter than everyone in that row.  And, oh, how I wish you had a better view of my white Michael Jackson shoes....they were the coolest!

See the boy on the same row as me, on the opposite end, in the blue and grey hoodie?  His name was Richard, and I loved him.  All the girls did.  We had these dances every Saturday night at the youth center on base, and I would dutifully stand against the cinder block wall every slow song, waiting for him to ask me to dance.  He finally did the following year, exactly one week before his dad was transferred to Norfolk, VA, and I cried through the whole song.  Jerk.

Ahhh....memories.  Got any for us today?  Sign in with a link to your post below, so everyone can come reminisce with you....

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I graduated from college fourteen years ago last spring.  I graduated with a major in English and a minor in Secondary Education.  I graduated cum laude.  I even won an award that year for Outstanding Secondary Education student. 

 Here I am on that fateful day in May, 1994….

(Me with Big D...and he's showing his empty pockets.  Smart alec!)

(Me with Indiana Mimi, Gigi and Debbles, who would later graduate from the same university)

You would think with that kind of jumpstart, with that kind of support from friends and family, with that much debt from my student loans, that I would have my masters by now, perhaps even my doctorate, teaching on a college campus, or maybe the English department head at some large high school.  But no.  What I’m doing with my college degree these days is this….

 …sorting Legos by color.  All of that time and effort in Shakespeare 201 and 202, all of those papers, all of those hours studying at a Waffle House drinking pot after pot of coffee, all of those thousands of dollars, and I sit on my son’s bedroom floor and sort his Lego collection by color.

Oh, some days I change it up.  I sort the laundry by color.  Some days I have a creative bent and go a totally different direction by dusting the ceiling fan blades.  Other days I may play Toy Story Yahtzee four times in a row.  Some days I may do as little as possible and read a novel while my kids play the Wii.  Once in a while I really get crazy and clean up dog vomit.  Oh yeah…that embossed, gold-leafed piece of paper called a diploma is really coming in handy for all of that stuff.

Yet, you know what?  I am happy.  Not that I want to sort Legos everyday of my life, but it was okay because I was helping my son.  I’ve done so much laundry now that it’s just routine.  I actually really like Toy Story Yahtzee…there’s nothing like rolling four Buzzes on your first turn.  And I think every once in a while it’s fine to have some me-time while my kids are occupied.  Hey…and they even sweat when they play the Wii!  Well, it’s never fun to clean up dog vomit.  That never makes me happy, but I’m still glad I have a dog.  I don’t think I’d be nearly so content and satisfied with other accolades and positions and professional opportunities.

Well, a paycheck might be nice.

Have some Flashback-ish thoughts for us today?  Sign up with a link to your post below and we’ll all swing by to touch base with you.  Well, at least I will!

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For today's flashback, I'm going back to a time of peace, to time of serenity, to time of rest, to a time when I could complete sentences, to a time when I experienced sanity and calm and feng shui, to a time before this....

Yes, folks, I'm going back to all of about 2.5 weeks ago, to the front porch of my vacation cabin...

Man, do I miss that time!  And it seems so much longer ago than just earlier this month.  I think I've aged about five years since then.

Just in case you're wondering, we are making progress...

I know it still looks messy, but trust me, you just wouldn't believe what we've done in there.  Besides single-handedly stocking about 4 Goodwill stores, I filled up my new bookcases in the loft...

And I've gotten my little office area mostly set up.  Big D didn't think I could fit everything I had (mostly scrapbook stuff) into this small area, but I did it...

Still messy, but getting there. (...and please just ignore my pitiful little plant there.  Green things are just not my forte.)

Big D is beginning to tape and paint tonight...

Well, technically he's spackling the wall, but you get the idea.  Oh, and here's the very last two bags of trash, all bagged and ready for the curb...

I know that looks like a perfectly good pencil box, but the lid won't stay closed, and it has melted crayon all over the bottom.  I don't think even Goodwill wants it.

Well, there's still this...

...but that's just going to have stay there until Harrison's room is finished.

Now I have to go because Big D is kicking me off the computer because he has to unhook it so he can tape this corner of the room off.  Hopefully next week we'll be all settled, and I'll have something a little more "flashy" for next Friday!

So, what's on your mind this week?  Have any memories for us?  Sign in below and tell us all about them...

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In case you haven't noticed, my Flashback Friday entries usually center around what is going on in my life at the present.  Well, this week was VBS at our church, and basically it was all-consuming, so I dug out the oldest pictures I could find in the VBS genre.

This was Annaleigh's first VBS...

She's the little over-dressed red head there on the front row.  She was two years-old and probably too young to even know why she was there.  The reason why she was there, in case you're wondering, was to give me a chance to go sip a cup of coffee at the Shoney's down the street....but don't tell anyone that, ok?

In the above shot, it's hard to tell if she's putting the offering in or taking it out.  I'd prefer to think she's putting it in, since we were trying hard not to raise a thief.

Boy, the years sure do fly!  Now she's too old to actually be an attendee at our VBS, but she's a helper.

You may think VBS stands for Vacation Bible School, but at our church it actually stands for Verging on the Borders of inSanity.  You see our church is small....very small.  We don't have enough children in our congregation to constitute a VBS.  Nor do we have enough workers to competently run one.  However, our church is located very near a government subsidised neighborhood that is swarming with children, so that's why we host one year after year.  It is cuh-razy!  Yet every year when I look at the photos of the smiling, happy faces while I soak my sore feet in Epsom salts, I realize it's worth it...every chaotic second.

I no longer go down the street to sip coffee (but believe me...it's tempting because our present church is near a Starbuck's...not a Shoney's).  I am the craft person, and it's just about the looniest room in the building. (Big D asked me to give him photo credits for the following...)

Those pictures may look all nice and sweet and tame, but trust me, being the craft person can bring on a headache the size of Montana.

Yet, I still do it because it's not really the crafts that are important.  It's not about the crick in your back.  It's not about the paint on your favorite maternity shirt.  And it's not about the room that you left in a massive upheaval earlier tonight because you were too tired to think about it.  It's the opportunity to share the love of Christ with children through spending time with them and showing them a brief moment of love and peace..

However I still suspect that some are just there for the food...

But then again, maybe not...

Please join me with a flashback of your own!  Then come back here and post the link so we can all come share in it....

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Last Sunday, while on vacation at the cabins featured in my post below, Big D and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary.  See...

I promise that is not the picture insert that comes with the frame.  It's really me and Big D at the tender ages of 18 (give me a break...I was almost 19!) and 21.

Every year when this event rolls around, I like to reflect on the reasons I married this man and am still happily married to him after all these years.  Then I thought how this would make a great "Flashback Friday."  So, here are my reasons, accompanied by a photo that has once-upon-a-time appeared on this blog for some reason or another.

1.  He is a hunka-hunka burnin' love!

2.  He knows how to have a good time.

3.  He can cook.

4.  He's a little bit crazy.

(in a good, non-scary sort of way)

5.  He's a good dad.

(OK...so I didn't exactly know this when I married him, but I had a hunch, alright?!)

6.  He is fierce.

(in a big teddy bear sort of way)

7.  He doesn't mind when I do things like this.

8.  He's creative.

(Yes, I know this involves food again.  I am pregnant...it's how I think nowadays.)

9.  He can dance and rap.

10.  He loves God.

(Even though the expression on his face doesn't exactly demonstrate it.  Trust me....he does.)

11.  He's artistic.

12.  He's romantic.

13.  He lets me have these...

(...even though he doesn't really like them all that much.)

14.  He's a good sport.

(and so are Indiana Mimi and Debbles, I might add.)

15.  He's award-winning.

16.  He's adventurous.

and finally...

17.  He lets me have my way.

(...but not without a fight!)

Seriously, Big D is the best husband out there, and I am blessed to have lived almost half my life with him.  I'm looking forward to the next 17 years of fun, chaos, love and adventure!

So, have you been saving anything up for Flashback Friday for the past couple of weeks while I've been delinquent?  If so, post below so that we can come share the memory with you...

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Since Flashback Friday happens to fall on a national holiday this time around, I'm skipping it this week.  I figured you might be more interested in grilling hamburgers, eating slices of watermelon and shooting fireworks with your families than sitting at the computer and reading about....oh, say...my mild obsession with Michael J. Fox and "Family Ties" in 1986.  So just like Mel shouted so appropriately, right before he lost his head in Braveheart, you have freedom this week from Flashback Friday!

I thought I might put a cute Independence Day graphic on here to create a festive mood, but finding an appropriate 4th of July graphic is about as difficult as it was to find a nice Christmas one.  Let me just say that I was not aware that the Statue of Liberty could glowand sparkle in seven different neon colors while breakdancing  or that so many buxom young cartoon women like to wrap themselves in the American flag and nothing else.

I finally settled on this one...

I like the homespun, vintage feel to this one.  I also found humor in the fact that this child has no idea that he is about to blow himself to kingdom come since he built the "4" with dynamite sticks that are larger than his torso.  How quaint.

Truly, I do wish you a very happy Independence Day.  Enjoy your time off and fun with your families and the privilege of living in such a great country!

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This past week we bought a new sofa, which naturally started me to thinking about evolution.  Well, not Darwin's theory of evolution, but of the evolution that Big D and I have undergone through the years in being consumers of sofas.  I don't mean that we eat sofas, but that we purchase them.

So, almost seventeen years ago, Big D and I got married.  We were uncharacteristically young, and we each had nothing by way of material goods, except a closet full of clothing, to our names.  Big D had been living on his ship, the USS Sierra, and I, a college student, had been living at home with Indiana Mimi, Gigi, and Debbles.  So we needed furniture.  Imagine my surprise and delight when an associate pastor from our church told me an elderly woman had a trailer full of old furniture that was just sitting around and that we could have whatever we wanted.  For the most part, we hit the jackpot.  Big D and I were going for the country look and really liked antiques, and among the pieces was a beautiful claw-foot table and six flute-back chairs, as well as a couple of nicely upholstered wing back chairs.  The sofa, however, was a doozy....

• Yes, it is pale orange.
• Yes, it is adorned with large, dark orange peacock-like birds.
• No, I don't know why I have a cooler lid sitting on the couch next to me.
• No, I don't know what the scrap of paper says that I'm holding, but I suspect it might say, "This sofa really bites."
• No, I don't know why I chose those tortoise shell frames for my glasses or why I wore them in the picture.
• Yes, I did always feel like singing "Dream On", weaving a wreath of daisies for my hair and smoking a doobie anytime I sat on it.  OK...not really....at least not the part about the doobie.
• Yes, that's the claw-foot dining table and flute-back chairs in the back ground.  We still have that table, which we use for a side table in our dining room.
• And, finally, yes, we do have cinder block walls because we were living in the married dorms of my college.

Ugh....is that not the ugliest sofa you've ever seen?!  Yet, we were thankful for a free place to sit for a year or so.

For our first anniversary we bought this familiar piece of furniture....

I say "familiar" because if you're a regular reader of this blog, then you've seen this sofa many times, as we still owned it until last weekend.  In recent years it was in our family room/loft where we do a lot of our school reading.  Most recently it was the site where I pancaked a tutu and lived to tell about it.

For many years, the above was our only sofa, but when we moved to TN almost seven years ago, we bought a house with two living areas.  For the first couple of years, the plaid sofa was in the downstairs living area, while our loft was housed with not much of anything, except some beanbags and such, until we bought this...

...our denim furniture! (Please ignore the random stuffed animals on the floor.  My kids were making them play a baseball game, and the photo is from a previous post of mine.)  This sofa is super-comfortable, being the squishy, slipcover style, but we've been a little dissatisfied with how slouchy looking it gets.  We've thought for a long time that it would be a better fit for our loft where the TV is and school happens, and we've been looking at more formal options for the living area.  Also, recently a certain reader and blogger friend mistook the armrest of this sofa for my hind parts (see the comment section), so I drug the whole thing into the yard, sprayed it down with four cans of AquaNet, and threw a match on it.  OK, not really.  It's now upstairs in the loft, but I swear I will never pose in front of that sofa again.  Never.  Never ever.

Well, this week we finally settled on this...

I'm sort of going for the Pottery Barn look, but I see now that Bridget, her green ball, and random magazines that are on the floor ruin that effect.  The green water bottle that I left on the stairs for spraying Ripley for getting on the new sofa doesn't help any either.  And  I think it's safe to say, that unless I'm ever wearing tight brown leather pants, there is no way that the armrest or any part of this sofa, could be mistaken for my rear anatomy.

Thanks for tolerating this somewhat bizarre look at my furniture tastes and purchases over the years.  Do you have any memories that you'd like to share?  Sign-up with Mr. Linky below with a link to your post, so that we can all come share with you....

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When Annaleigh was five, something weird happened.  We gave her a Cinderella party because she pretty much was obsessed with this princess at the time.  She watched the movie weekly.  We read books about her.  She had the doll.  We traveled to Orlando, Florida to visit her castle and meet her at breakfast.  It was a crazy time.

So, anyway, we had this party, and in the invitation we told the attendees they could dress up, if they wanted to.  All the girls came fully decked out in their princess garb.  All the boys came in their jean shorts and tee-shirts and were probably not all too clean.  All but one.  This guy....

He comes in a little tuxedo and bearing a corsage for the party princess.  It looks like they were going to a little mini-prom doesn't it?  Well, we did what any over-protective parents would do....we sold our home and moved out of the state.  And that's a true story!

Here in Tennessee, we've managed to avoid the romance department so far.  Well, until this guy came along...

Frankly, I'm not sure what she sees in him.  I mean he's not exactly a looker.  However, he's been causing her to dress like this....

and go around in a constant swoon...

and declare her love in the most ridiculous fashion...

Oh, c'mon..."Your form is beautiful!"  "He doth teach the stars to sing."  Who does she think she is...Shakespeare?!

Anyway, it looks like another move is in the works for us.  I'm looking at Maine.  Anyone know anything about Maine?  Anyone?  How about Oregon?

(***Disclaimer***  Just in case you hadn't figured this out by now, this entire post is tongue-in-cheek.  Annaleigh was recently cast as Titania in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, and this was just my attempt to chronicle her time at drama camp as the fairy queen who falls for the donkey-headed Bottom/Pyramus and to tease my pre-teen daughter who will eventually read this and be mortified.  But that's what blogging parents do, right?  She was actually pretty fed up by the young man who played her opposite, saying he acted fairly obnoxious during rehearsals.  Well, what can you expect from an ass?  Now, if I can just convince her that all people of the opposite sex are thus for the next...oh, say...twenty years then we can just stay here in our fair state of TN.)

So, got anything for us to share this week?  Sign in below and flashback with us...

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It is past 2am here (I'm back to drinking a bit of coffee again now and then), and I have been playing Spider Solitaire for about an hour, waiting for inspiration to hit me for my flashback.  Nothing.  Nothing...well, except a few frustrating electronic card games.  Usually I know what I'm going to blog about for Friday a few days in advance, and I will begin to hunt for any old pictures that need to be scanned, get permission from my family to post their retro photos (again, not really...but it sounds good), and sometimes even begin to write the entry early on Thursday.  But not this week.  Nothing historical was coming to me.  Nothing.

And now my caffeine high is wearing off a bit, and I need to drag my body to bed.  So I am not flashing back today.  I'm sorry.  Yet if you have something you want to share and have been waiting all week for Flashback Friday (ha, ha), then I thought I'd go ahead and post the Mr. Linky box.  See? Here it is....

 Later today (or this weekend) I may do a highly intriguing post about my recent experience with pancaking a tutu.  You won't want to miss it!  And then I will be thinking intently about next week's Flashback Friday piece, and I will try to come up with something riveting....but don't hold your breath.

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This is a picture of my grandma (mine and Debbles' kids always called her "Gigi"), Debbles and me in about 1986.  Oh, yes....and I'm holding our dog, Bonnie, and Debbles is holding three Pound Puppies (anyone remember Pound Puppies?!?).

Gigi lived with our family from the time I was about two years-old, so I actually can't even remember life without her with us.  It proved to be providential after my parents' divorce because my mom had to go back to work, and Gigi's being there prevented me and Debbles from becoming latchkey children after school.  It also prevented mine and Debbles' early demises since we probably would have killed one another if left alone for too long.

I always loved to hear stories about Gigi's family when she was young.  If I ever write a book, it will probably be a fiction-based-on-truth novel about her family.  She came from a family of eleven children, growing up in Depression area, rural Arkansas.  Every time she shared a story or tidbit from this time, it was like opening a window to the past for me.  I know they were a very poor family, but the stories she shared were rich with character, life and love, and I was always a captive audience.

Gigi passed away in April of 2003, and she was buried next to her husband, who died a couple of years before I was born, and her son, who died when I was just a couple of months old.  It is a little cemetery in her hometown, where almost all of her large family is buried.

This past Monday, for Memorial Day, Big D had the idea to drive to Arkansas to visit her grave, since we haven't been back since the funeral.  It was a crazy idea really, but we did it anyway.  Four and half hours there and the same coming back.  All in one day.  Whew!

First, we stopped to visit Gigi's oldest sibling, Henry, who since a stroke a couple of years ago, has been in a nursing home.  He's 92 and the only brother that's still living.

This was actually a very sad visit.  Just five years ago at Gigi's funeral, he was still such a vibrant, feisty man.  Thankfully, he did know my mom, although he got a little confused towards the end and thought she was Gigi.

Then we made our way to Hartsoe Cemetery where we first paid our respects to my grandparents.

The cemetery places flags on all of the veterans' graves.  My grandfather was a veteran of the army in WWII.  Like I said, I never knew him, but Indiana Mimi likes to tell the stories of how he swam in Mussolini's swimming pool after the Italian take-over and how he was the only survivor of his tank which was hit by a grenade.

To the left of their plot is where my Uncle Larry, Indiana Mimi's only sibling, is buried.  He died tragically at the young age of only 23.  Harrison is apparently his look-alike.  All of my grandma's living sisters always gasp and tear up when they see him because he looks so much like him.  Even my Uncle Henry saw the resemblance when we visited him.  At one point he was staring at Harrison, and he said, "I sure do like that boy.  Looks like Larry."

I remember always being fascinated with that picture frame on his headstone when I was young.  My kids did more than their fair share of opening and closing it on that day too.

Here Annaleigh is looking at the headstones of three of Gigi's brothers who all died fairly young.  They were all unmarried, so they were buried by one another.  One of her brothers, Herman, was buried in Washington state where he lived with his wife.  These are the graves of Robert (the youngest), Al and Bill.

This is the grave of one of Gigi's younger sisters who died when she was only 8.  Gigi always said she was diagnosed with a hole in her heart, which I believe is, most of the time, easily remedied nowadays.

Later, Indiana Mimi wanted some time to walk around alone, so we entertained ourselves by taking pictures of one another and reading random headstones.

Lastly, we stopped by Indiana Mimi's aunt's house, who  lives just a few miles from the cemetery.

Her name is Zelba, and she was married to Indiana Mimi's dad's brother Allie, who died the same year as Gigi.  I always get the biggest kick out of the fact that she has an identical twin whose name is Melba.  Zelba and Melba....isn't that great?

And then we started the journey home.  It was a crazy, long, exhausting day, but it was well-worth it.  I think we'll probably do it again next year....that is if our six month-old baby will cooperate for a trip like that.

So what memories do you have for us today?  Sign in and share them with us!

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Ack...I'm late again!  Sorry!  I had every intention of posting this last night, but Harrison's baseball game ran very late, and I was too tired.  Then I had every intention of getting up this morning early to post it, but my eyes weren't cooperating with me, and they kept staying shut when I wanted them to be open.  When I finally got my eye situation under control, I realized that our refrigerator had died sometime during the night, and my ultra-expensive groceries that I had just bought were spoiling.  We're still dealing with that right now, but I'm taking a break from deciding whether to try to salvage last Wednesday's pizza leftovers in order to bring you this flashback.

Yesterday, Annaleigh babysat, solo, for the first time.

There she goes, trekking across our little valley to the neighbor's house on the next street, with lunchbox in hand and math homework slung over her shoulder (which she didn't do, by the way).  She's been watching kids for some time now:  in the church nursery, at our Bible study group, etc.  But this was the first time someone has requested her services in their home and paid her for it.  It is an understatement to say she's thrilled.

Watching her walk across the way yesterday as I snapped picture...

after picture...

after picture...

...made me nostalgic about the days when she needed a babysitter if Big D and I had to be out and about.  I set about looking for pictures of babysitters of old and found this unique shot...

Basically, nearly every babysitter we ever used is pictured around this table at her 2nd birthday party.  We have Indiana Mimi ( in fuschia) and Gigi (in the blue plaid), who probably babysat more than anyone.  Then we have Debbles (in the tan overalls) who definitely stepped in on more than one occasion to watch the redhead.  Aunt Amy (in the coral) also did her fair share of the watching.  We were lucky then to have them all living so close.  Ma (in the navy blue) and Aunt Susan (in the cream) have also kept both of our kids from time to time when we've had out of town trips.  We have been very, very blessed with FREE babysitters.

The only outside-of-family babysitter that I could think of was Sonia, pictured here with her brother, Ricky...

Sonia was a part of the youth group that we worked with at that time, and she sort of became like another daughter to us for many years.  When Annaleigh got older, she did watch her from time to time for me.

Well, it looks like the family that used Annaleigh yesterday would like to use her some more over the summer, and that's a good thing.  She's going to need plenty of practice for her own new brother or sister in six months or so....

I know it's late, but go ahead and share some memories with us if you have the chance...

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Right now, as I type this up, there's approximately forty minutes left of Harrison's 8th birthday.  We, of course, have already celebrated like mad people, but I still wanted to do a little something to mark the event in cyberspace.  So, please join me for a brief, slightly chaotic, and wholly incomplete trip down memory lane....

Here is our boy on his actual BIRTH day...

Isn't he alert looking for a newborn?  That's because he was born two months late.  Just kidding....it just felt like that long.  It was actually about a week and half.  I still think he was a tad overdone.

His first birthday, with a smiley face theme, was celebrated at our home in Summerville, SC.

Later he ate a little smiley face cupcake on his own and was yellow from forehead to chin.

His second birthday, with a ball theme, was celebrated in our current home.

I served all round food:  cheese balls, fruit balls, meatballs, etc.  He loved it!  I couldn't actually find a picture of him blowing out his candles, but here's one of him in a favorite gift...

OK, now we're going to fast-forward to birthday #6 because photos from birthdays 3-5 are being stored on an external hard drive, which I have no earthly idea how to use, and it is much to late to involve Big D, the smart one around here, in this endeavor.  For his sixth birthday, we celebrated at Laser Chase, and he chose a Hot Wheels cake, one of the few which I have not decorated myself.

Last year, when he turned seven, we didn't have a party, but I did make a cake, and we celebrated with our Bible study group.

That's Jack Sparrow and company sinking into those graham cracker crumbs.  The little figures wouldn't stand up unless I pushed them in thigh-deep.  If you'd like to see a better picture of this cake, you could to last year's blog entry about this event by clicking here.

And then, finally, I snapped this picture last night after his baseball game.  I made cupcakes in their team colors (Cubs!).

The celebration continues, as after church tomorrow, we are taking six of his friends to see Prince Caspian.  It's opening weekend, and I know that we are insane for doing this.  I'm sure I'll post some pictures in a few days.

Happy 8th birthday, Harrison!!!  We couldn't love you more if we tried!

(Since I posted this flashback so late this time, I won't have sign-ups.  We'll be back to normal this Friday...I think.)

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Something really weird just happened to me.  Annaleigh has a play this weekend, and tonight we went to see the dress rehearsal with Big D's mom and dad.  When we came home, we got the kids settled, and then Big D asked me to "put him to bed," which is a code phrase for him needing his back scratched.  That was three hours ago.  I just sat bolt-right-up in bed.  I was fully dressed, and I had been dreaming that I was about to meet Barrack Obama backstage at an American Idol concert.  (I think it was turning into a nightmare.)  I got up and changed into pajamas and was about to get back into bed when I remembered there were a few things I needed to do....Bake cookies.  I had volunteered to bake cookies for the receptions after Annaleigh's plays.  Make Mother's Day cards.  Wash Harrison's baseball uniform that he got dirty wearing for 15 minutes this afternoon before his game was cancelled due to rain.  Write my Flashback Friday blog.

So, here I sit at 1:12am on Friday morning, flashing back to another time and another place. (Trust me....it beats dreaming about Obama!)

This is Indiana Mimi and I way back when.  Cute, weren't we?  The story behind this picture is that my dad was supposed to go with us to get a family picture, but my parents had a spat before we left, and my dad wouldn't go.  I don't really have any memories of that, but looking back at this photo, I'm glad it was just me and my mom.  We don't have a ton of pictures, just she and I.  Another bit of the story is that when we went to choose and pick up our pictures, I was only interested in the individual ones of me.  I'm glad Indiana Mimi wasn't having any of my vanity because I really treasure this picture now.  I like remembering my mom at this stage...remembering how she would always drive me to and from school so I wouldn't have to ride the bus.  I remember once when I was really sick and couldn't sleep she stayed awake into the wee morning hours playing Hi-Ho-Cherrio with me.  She was always my advocate when my dad wanted me to eat everything on my plate, but I knew I would die if I had to eat a beet.  Once I got a detention in 2nd grade for something I didn't do.  Indiana Mimi believed me, and even went to the school to discuss it with my principal. (I still had to serve the detention, by the way.)  Indiana Mimi never missed one event of my entire life that I know of.

Here we are now...

Ummm...something has definitely happened to us over the years, but we're still kinda cute aren't we?  I don't know....something in me wants to recreate the sailor suit look and troop into Olan Mills for another photo op.

Indiana Mimi is still a great mom to me today, when I'm 35, instead of 5.  Something tells me that she would still not want me to have to ride the bus or eat beets.  I think she might play Hi-Ho-Cherrio with me if I needed her to.  I know she'd argue tooth and nail if someone gave me a detention.  She still hasn't missed any events of mine or my children.  And she allows me to call her Indiana Mimi and post silly pictures of her on my blog...ones of her wearing silly hats, with a Webkinz bullfrog on her head. (Well, I use the word allows very loosely.  I'll just say she hasn't disowned me for it yet.)

Does it get any better than that?  I think not.

Happy Mother's Day, Indiana Mimi!  I love you!  You're the best!

Now, I'm off to bed, hopefully not to dream about eating breakfast with Hilary Clinton at Cracker Barrel....

Do you have any warm fuzzy memories of your own mother?  Why not share them with us.....or any memory for that matter?  Sign up with Mr. Linky below, so we can all come and share!

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