A beautiful sunny Monday. Finally home from Auburn. Went to the fireworks store. Listening to the Avett Brothers. Getting ready to pop open the first beer of the afternoon, build a fire, and download apps for the new iPhone, all while watching Georgia football.
Heaven.
So, I got an iPhone. What apps do you love? What apps do you use constantly? I am compiling a list of things to look into when I have time to download them and am not in the complete boonies. I am assuming that once I have downloaded said recommended apps, my life will become perfect.
Right? Right?!
This is what it’s all about for me.
For more love, check out the gallery of photos below . . .
I want, I need, I love this.
I have to have it.
This makes no sense unless you watch Friday Night Lights. It is my favorite show. I don’t currently really watch it, because we don’t have it because Comcast sucks donkey dongs. I don’t understand why, but it is on a channel that we don’t get, and so I have been going through life trying to avoid at all costs hearing what is happening on the show until the new year, when Friday Night Lights will be on my very own television in my very own house.
At the lake my parents have satellite and they for some reason get the show, which is funny, because they don’t watch it. But I guess I set it up to record it while I was living there, and it recorded some of this season’s episodes. There were five of them from the new season on the DVR this weekend. There were some missing, presumably because my parents were watching CSI Special Crimes Mentalist Victim Unit Criminal Bones Minds Miami and the message mentioning that it was going to record Friday Night Lights came on, and Dad said, “What the hell is this shit?” and selected “Cancel Recording.”
I stared guiltily at those five episodes in the guide for a while. I was obviously at a precipice. I could walk away from the cliff. I realized that I should walk away.
Except that I might have accidentally watched four episodes of it before i realized that. (I was kind of like Saracen when he opened the box in that fourth episode that I wasn’t supposed to watch.) And I would have watched the fifth, but i had to nerd out on some stars.
I just couldn’t help myself. It is shameful, but I love that show so much, I even taught my kids, who are already confused enough by football allegiances, that my second favorite team is the Dillon Panthers. And now Coach Taylor has gone across the tracks to coach football at the other high school in town, East Dillon. The Lions, in case you are wondering, as my kids will when they find out my allegiances will change to from Dillon High to East Dillon.
So, when I read Melanie’s Fashion Friday edition I Can’t Feel My Face post on Big Mama, and came across her #7 choice, well, let’s just say i never knew that there was a hole in my t-shirt collection until I saw it. I have to have it.
My poor, poor confused children will have to deal.
I mentioned that we were having John Maghetti for dinner the other night when we were at the lake, and someone asked me what it was. It is one of those mythical Dunstan recipes that my Mom learned from her mom and my Aunt Dot. Which means that it’s easy, cheap, fattening comfort food. Much like the fabled No Peekie.
Ingredients:
Ground beef
egg noodles
can of tomato soup
block of cheddar cheese
Yum. And my kids like it! I love some stealth tomato trickeration.
As i mentioned briefly in another post, I have been a little stressed out. A little anxious. Todd and I decided to go to the lake this weekend to blow off some steam and relax. And by relax, I mean relaxing in the time-honored Palmer way, which is to work your ass off to near-exhaustion performing manual labor.
We went down Saturday afternoon and got there in time to warm the place up. (It was 40-something degrees when we walked in.) Todd started some yard work, the kids ran around like wild animals (a good thing), and I started some John Maghetti for dinner. After it was on, the sun was setting, so I grabbed a couple of beers for Todd and I, and went outside to play with the kids, watch Rollie hit the tennis ball with Todd (no we don’t have a tennis court), and shoot some pictures and enjoy my favorite time of day at the lake.
We took photos and ran around, then went inside and ate dinner while watching Elf. You can’t beat John Maghetti, and the fire going, and belly-laughing at Elf with your husband and kids for stress relief. Honest to God, I just about bust a gut when Buddy says to Jovi, “It’s just nice to meet another human that shares my affinity for elf culture.” That is some good stuff. Just kills me. I also love that Rollie would laugh along with me and think it was hysterical just because we thought it was hysterical.
So, we got up yesterday and had breakfast and then Todd and I worked in the yard all day long, cutting shrubbery back to tame the wilds and pulling vines out of high pine trees, and tearing mistletoe from dogwood. And the kids played. Now, usually they play and then fight for a while, then play some more. This was almost pure playing. Almost zero fighting. Just running around, and rosy cheeks, and noses running and then wiping their snot on their sleeves, and yelling to hear their echoes across the lake, and tiller being the master of all the dogs in the area – Choco, and Josie, and Quint all a swirling mass of furriness following her around. They threw rocks and earned two dollars hauling clippings up to the burn pile. We were all cold when we started, and then warmed up with play and work.
I felt tired but good. We worked til we just about fell out and it started getting dark. We made two absolutely huge piles of limbs and vines and leaves to be burned. We had windburn on our cheeks and blisters on our feet, and scrapes and sappy fingers.
And I had no anxiety.
We cleaned up and took showers and had a couple of beers. We warmed by the fire. We went to town with the kids and had pizza and then to WalMart to let them spend their two dollars. We went home and tucked in two tired kids and Todd let me watch four episodes of Friday Night Lights.
And I had no anxiety.
Todd went to bed during the last episode of FNL. I guess he just couldn’t take the mental turmoil of Saracen and Riggins, and Coach and Tami, and the rigors of living the west Texas high school football life. Or maybe he was just tired. I was fifteen minutes from midnight. I had places to be.
I opened a last beer and made that “let’s go outside to pee” sound that I make to the dog at night. I think i got that one from my Daddy. Some of you know the sound. Quint struggled to his feet (he is old and has arthritis), while I put on a hat and a sweatshirt and my old wool plaid barn jacket that I leave at the lake because it is ugly, but I love it and still like to wear it.
I went down to the lake, and purposely left the lights out so that I could see the stars. I debated getting a ladder out and trying to disable the damn security light, but a) I had consumed at least six beers at that point, and I’d probably fall off the ladder and b) Dad would see the light was out and I’d end up back up the ladder fixing the damn thing within weeks.
It was clear. I thought to myself, “Which way is East?”
Easy. I had seen so many sunrises over that side of the lake, mornings fishing with Pop and Dad, up before dark, Grandma making me a thermos of hot sugar and milk with a drop of coffee, that I knew it by heart. I sat down on the far side of the dock, back to the pontoon and the power plant, on the narrow walk. I sat cross-legged, Indian style, criss-cross applesauce. I tucked a hand in my wool plaid pocket. Occasionally, I switched off hands in the pocket and hands on the beer. Mostly, I gazed up at a clear winter sky, and looked for meteors.
Quint came to sit near me. He wouldn’t lie down. He stared at me. He wondered what the fuck we were doing out in the cold midnight, when we could be on the couch near the fire. I saw it in his eye and the attention and cock of his ears.
I shushed him and rubbed his cold ears. I looked out across a glass-like lake, not a ripple on it, with no wind in the trees. i heard the plant occasionally, and wished I couldn’t hear it. I imagined what it would have sounded like on a lake with no power, what it would be like with nothing but natural light, the light of stars and moons. I couldn’t. There were Christmas lights across the lakes. I heard geese, and nothing else. I saw a couple of planes, the only other sign of life in this strange December 20th night. One day before Winter Solstice, ushered in by the Ursids.
The lake was so calm that I could see the reflection of the brightest stars on its surface. And oh, the stars!
A blanket of stars in a swath across the eastern sky, for me and me only, reflected on my lake. It was five after midnight. No meteors yet. And then there was one. And then it was gone.
I sat for almost an hour, sipping my beer slowly, staring at the sky until my eyes grew tired. I would see a shooting star and it would be gone, and I felt that familiar star-gazing feeling of relief that I was really seeing something, and awe that I knew to look that night, that man has learned so much about something so boundless.
I wondered about the other folks who might be out looking up that same night, the night before the Winter Solstice. And yet I was so alone, just me and my dog. I could slip into the lake and no one would ever find me. I stood and walked back to land. I stood there at the edge of the lake shivering, Quint sitting patiently at my side, and told myself I would go in when I saw the next meteor.
I saw it, streaking across the sky, and then it was gone. I went inside and crawled into bed with my husband and I was happy and satisfied and feeling small and big all at the same time.
And I had no anxiety.
I don’t mind the weather
I’ve got scarves and caps and sweaters
I’ve got long johns under slacks for blustery days
I think that it’s brainless to assume
That making changes to your window’s view
Will give a new perspective
So, yeah, the anxiety is getting me down, and I feel like I’m in a rut. So, we’re going to my happy place. I don’t care how cold it is. I think it just might actually give me new perspective.
Things we’ve been up to. . .
Bad news first:
I think I am having anxiety problems. I have no idea what is causing it, other than that I haven’t been working out. This is a new one for me. I bet it will clear up when I get more exercise. Anyone else have this problem?
On to good stuff:
Seeing Santa at Joe’s Coffee Shop in East Atlanta, just like we have every year. Even though we don’t live there anymore, we still like to go back to our favorite coffee shop, and see people’s kids growing up and talk to old friends. And hey, where else can you go where you know Santa and the elves personally? It is a nice family tradition for us, even if Rollie was kind of an ass that day.
Mr. Grumpy face
Tiller loves hot chocolate.
Mom and Dad might buy this house in the Atlanta area:
Keep your fingers crossed for them.
We have elves. They showed up on the doorstep one morning with notes from Santa. They are full of mischief. As Rollie said the other day, “They did two mischievouses!” Or, as Tiller calls them: “Misfishes.”
The first night they were here they made a tower of presents and got into the wrapping ribbons!
Holiday Feast at Rollie’s school. We all went. They had turkey and dressing. Yes, school cafeteria turkey and dressing is just as terrible as you remember. THEY PUT MY ROLL SMACK DAB ON TOP OF MY TURKEY AND GRAVY; This is tantamount to holding me down and making me eat wet toilet paper.
Rollie and some classmates waiting in the lunchline.
It really captures the way that boys can’t stand still, and the kid with the shiner is really funny.
She is putting on a good face about the cafeteria lunch.
Rollie isn't bothering with putting a pretty face on it.
We made some Christmas cookies. I will never get the flour cleaned up. . . .
Rollie got a little on his face. And in his hair. And on the walls.
See that little container? She is about to take the whole container of sprinkles and dump it on one damn cookie.
Not as much fun to clean up. That is a ton of flour. It gets in the cracks of the table and turns hard and grody.
That’s about where I am. Stressed out about apparently nothing. Not feeling good. I have never really had problems with anxiety before. No clue what to do about it. Terrible feeling.
My mom, specifically. We were talking about my blog, and she said she loves to read about what the kids and I are up to, but never remembers to check it. I told her that she could subscribe to my blog and automatically get my updates via RSS.
She stared at me like I just told her that pink elephants could come to her house and check my blog for her every day.
Hence the new email subscription option over to the right. Maintenance performed almost purely for my mom and other family members who read my blog. (Dad doesn’t read it, and doesn’t want me writing about him or mom on my blog, or “he’ll sue my ass.” Nice. Love you too, Dad.
So, if you actually read my blog regularly (there are, like, five of you, i think) and don’t want to have to remember to check it, you can click here to subscribe to Dogwood Girl by email. And of course you brilliant computer-savvy folks still have the old RSS option.