Uncle Mark took some shots of the kids while we were in Mexico. I love this one:
But then, I also like this one:
This one:
And this one:
Nice to see they missed us while we were gone.
Posts Tagged ‘Lisa’
I think they missed us.
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011Life Gets in the Way, But Let Me Fast Forward It For You
Monday, March 22nd, 2010This has been my worst month of posting in years. Life has really gotten in the way. Many reasons come into play. Me training for another triathlon. Work. Lots of company, like Todd’s cousin Jenn, and my friend Honey and her family, and my mom is having surgery on her foot, and mom and dad having moved, a neighbor and i started a community website, Dekalb county board of education sucks, and I have to sometimes cook and do laundry and make beds, or at least enough so that todd won’t divorce me.
A recap in pictures (just hold your mouse over each one for the witty caption):
I guess that kind of sums it up.
Yeah, Dogwood is back. She’s back!
Sometimes I Miss The Baby Days
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
No, I didn’t take this. It was probably my mom or dad. And no, it’s not me. It’s my sister, Lisa. Really reminds me a lot of my nephew Dash, though, so thought i would post it for her.
Also, see that jacket? I am such a packrat that I kept it and Rollie and Tiller wore it, too. You could get tetanus from that metal zipper, but my Mom and I like to live parenthood on the edge. See how she gave Lisa that sucker and made her climb the chair with it in her mouth? I have always wanted to daredevil parent just like her.
I miss those days when the Tills was little and I had a patio out the screen door of my kitchen. Her hair looks better these days, though.
Yes, this post makes no sense at all. None. This is what happens when I start looking at baby pictures. My brain gets scrambled by the cuteness and the nostalgia.
SisterSpeak
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009Because I was picking cotton today, I was reminded that my sister and I have our own language. As our friend Harris famously once said, “You guys are freakishly close.”
How well do you know me and Leelee? Do you know the meaning of these words and phrases?
Waggy Butt
whermp
salmon
cotton
catface
strap on the feedbag
We should bitch more
shark
him’s bad
Lisa, what would you add to this list? I know there are more. This was off the top of my head when I was picking cotton this morning.
(Um, yeah, this is just a post for fun while i finish up a longer one I am working on.)
Mr. Mouth
Monday, December 14th, 2009Because Lisa couldn’t remember the Mr. Mouth game pictured in my last post – Something to jog her memory.
Even 34 years ago . . .
Monday, December 7th, 2009I was still there for my little sis. You know, to help her open those gifts. Now I drink the wine with her, and maybe borrow stuff she gets. That’s how I roll.
Look at us, back in ’75! Leelee, I am sure that if we diet enough, we can wear these outfits again, and not look like sofas.
I love you, Lee. Have a wonderful birthday.
For Anyone Who Birthed Dash
Thursday, August 6th, 2009So, today, Dogwood Girl is going to be all about Dash. Dash is my nephew. He is really cute.
I put together a gallery of shots from this morning. He has a monkey on his pjs, holding a banana. You cannot resist the cuteness. I got up with him at 6:45, but as you can see, I am not his favorite. He and Todd have a little love affair going. I do not like it when i am holding him and todd walks in the room and Dash’s face lights up and he puts his arms out to Todd. Yes, I am that petty.
And yes, I realize that this is baby picture overkill. If you did not squeeze this baby out of your own vagina, you don’t have to look at every one of them.
Torn and Shattered
Thursday, May 28th, 2009So, this is going to be a big ole diarrhea of the mouth, pity party of a post.
Our world is fucked. The automobile and the plane have made it possible to stray so far from home that we never go back. Modern medicine has made it so that we live forever, eternally burdening our families with caring for us, when by all laws of nature, we should have been dead years ago, and not in a long-drawn-out manner. Maybe we were meant to keel over with heart attacks in the front yard, or die a sleepy diabetic coma death. Our families suffer for the way that our modern world has attempted to fix things.
Families are not meant to live in different cities, where they cannot take care of one another and shoulder burdens for one another and carry the loads together. I should be able to take the four hours my husband will be home today and use that time to dump the kids on him and go check on my Daddy, and my Mama, and my Pop. It is not natural to have to drive an hour and a half just to get there. My sick mother should have me and my sister helping take shifts to watch Daddy. When the doctor yesterday told her she should go straight to the ER for the infection, she should have gone, knowing that we would be around to watch Daddy. If i lived in a town with her (God, no. Not Warner Robins. That is not what I am saying!), she would have had the peace of mind to know that we would be able to cover for her. There would always be someone to spend a night with the kids, or take my Pop to the ER, which is what my mom is doing this morning, even though last night, the doctors wanted her to go herself. There would always be someone to let the Goddamn dogs out. Woof Woof Woof.
What is wrong with us? This is so wrong, so unnatural. How do other people do this? Do they just not care that their relatives are suffering? Do they suffer themselves, in silence, pushing down the fact that they can’t be in two places at once? Is that healthy? Is my family really that freakishly close, some anomaly, just because I want to be there and care for them when they are sick? Do other people feel this torn and shattered all the time?
What the fuck is wrong with us?
Home Sweet Home
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009Thank God. We are home as of about an hour ago. I feel like I am on tour with Allman Brothers in the 70’s or something. “On the Road Again” has been stuck in my head for days. I put over 700 miles on the car this week. Went down to meet mom and Dad at the hospital in Macon on Tuesday. Drove to Warner Robins that night. Spent the night. Wednesday, drove to the hospital to see Dad then drove back to Atlanta to pack some clothes, pick up the dog, and check on the kids and my Mother-in-law. (Oh, and kiss my husband before he left for Anchorage the following morning.) Drove back to Warner Robins Wednesday night. Went to bed at 11. Got up at 4 a.m., in time to go with mom and lisa to hospital in Macon before Dad’s surgery at 6 a.m. Sat around hospital all that day til they put him in ICU and said he wasn’t gonna die in the next couple of hours. Left Lisa at the hospital and drove my mom back to Warner Robins. Turned around and drove back to macon to be with sis. Saw Dad. Went back to WR with Lisa for dinner, a glass of wine, Xanax, and bed. (Hotel Virginia is awesome: Before bed, everyone got a glass of wine, a Xanax and a hot bath before putting on jammies and retiring to our respective bedrooms, with our dogs lying by our sides and each of us reading books til we fall asleep.)
Got up, went to hospital in Macon. Stayed with Dad for a while, then went on a search for men’s pajamas for Daddy, button front (NOT drawstring) and with matching top. They evidently do not make those anymore – Just the PJs bottoms with drawstrings, and coordinating t-shirts. I went three places. No dice. Gave up and went to bookstore and bought whole Sookie Stackhouse box set instead. Went home, and went to bed. Next morning, got up and packed all three dogs (Quint, Emily, and Malex) and took them to the lake, because i thought their wrestling in the house and the constant barking might give Mom the big one. Drove over to Milledgeville.
Got to the lake and realized how very bad Dad must have been feeling before his surgery; the weeds up by the road and the grass around the house were knee-high. I have never in my life seen that yard not mowed weekly, sometimes more during warm weather. I mowed and cut back some shrubbery that was getting out of control.
Let the dogs go free the weekend, romping in the water, rolling around in dead fish, playing with the country dogs always coming by to see us. At one point, I had eight dogs running around the front yard and in the lake: Our three, two chocolate labs (Josie and Choco – v. original), one unnamed poodle, two yellow labs, one of which they call Lego, but whose name is Legolas (v.literary for Milledgeville) and a pug named Lulu. Oh, that’s nine. Anyway, it was mayhem and it made me happy. It poured down in the afternoon and i sat on the porch and read my vampire book.
Lisa and Dash came down the next morning. I finished the last of the lawn, then we took the boat and the Seadoo out. It was relaxing to get out on the water and cut up on the seadoo and i knew Dad wished he could be there. V. few Memorial Days have I spent with neither my Dad or my husband. Definitely the first one i have ever spent with just my sister and my nephew.
Packed up yesterday morning. Drove to Macon, then to Columbus. If I ever bitch about how boring 16 is, just tell me to shut up and remember the poor people who have to drive from Macon to Columbus. I defy anyone to come up with a more boring drive. From Columbus, cut over to Opelika, then Dadeville to get the kids at my in-laws’. Spent the night over there (decided against driving back to Atlanta for two hours, in what would surely have turned into an 85-roadwork+Memorial-Day-Traffic clusterfuck of monumental proportion). I did get to hang out with my brother-in-law and my niece, Luci, who is cute as can be, and was so fun to watch with Rollie and tiller. They are all old enough now to play with each other and she and Tiller even got into a few arguments with one another. Good times!
Drove back this morning. Had fun discussion with Rollie in car:
R: “Mama, I want to move to Alabama, so that I can go to Sunday School.”
Me: [Laughing out loud.] “Baby, they have Sunday School in Georgia, too. What did y’all talk about in Sunday School.”
R: “We learned about this guy, his name starts with a D.”
Me: “David? Daniel?”
R: “There were three guys and they didn’t like the guy with the D name, so they tried to kill him.”
Me: “Um, okay, can you tell me more? Who else was there?”
R: “Knights and guys on horses.”
Me: “And what happened?”
R: “Well, the d guy, he had a plan. Also, the other two guys had a plan also. God was going to save them from being killed.”
This went on and on for about ten minutes, me trying to figure out what the heck bible story they had taught him, and him getting frustrated because I kept asking questions. Still haven’t figured this one out. Also haven’t decided if all the learning about people being killed is so great either.
Got back home. My garden is growing like gangbusters.
Oh, and Dad went home yesterday. He is driving me crazy, calling every few hours to check on us, tell us things that need to be done (wash the dog, mow the lawn, how is my garden? Don’t forget to fertilize it) and then waiting until we are midsentence in reply, and saying, “bye bye!” and click, he hangs up on us.
Love, Happy to be Home Dogwood
Another Cecil Update
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009This just in from my sister: “Just talked to Cecil on the phone. He said, “My nurse is a Porto Rican” (said just like that). ..in front of the nurse who I heard say “Phillipino” and then Dad says “Oh, he’s a Phillipino MALE nurse”. Because men can’t be nurses. Glad to know Big C is feeling like himself again.”