Simple Visits

As much as I am a suburban girl through and through, there is something about visiting my dear husband's oh-so-rural hometown that rejuvenates me.  A weekend at Grammie's house (as my kids would say) just fills me up in all of the right ways.

It might Grammie herself and her unfailing ability to make us feel like there is nothing else on earth she'd rather be doing than enjoying our company at her quiet, lovely home nestled on a hill overlooking a couple of ponds.   It might be the amazing breakfasts that Grandaddy prepares every single morning.  It might be the serenity of being miles from anyone (except maybe a few wild animals of which I'm frightened in an oh-so-suburban way).  It might be the fact that there is love every single place you go in that small town, whether it's the grocery store, or the grandparents' house, or church on Sunday morning.  It feels as if the whole place is bursting at the seams...with pure love and care.  And I am so blessed for such a wonderful little town to have found a way into my life.

I remember visiting for the first time my freshman year of college, nine years ago.  I drove there with my would-be husband for his cousin's wedding, then spent the night at a mutual friend's house who lived down the hall from me in my dorm and across the same small town as my future husband.  (Small world, I tell you.)  From the moment I arrived, I just knew.  I was home.  I wasn't even dating my husband at the time (well, he says that was our first date....), but I just felt like I had arrived somewhere that I belonged.  It was the same feeling I got when I visited my now-alma mater.  God spoke to me.  And I heard.  Loud and clear.

And now, this sleepy little town is my home away from home.  My respite.

And it's where we spent our last weekend, relishing in the joys of family - mostly outside at the cookout house, enjoying the beautiful fall weather.  (I have been waiting all year for this cool, crisp air.)

Where Grammie provides endless snacks for perpetually hungry youngin's

Where youngin's peep over the wall of the cookout house wishing they could get down to that pond...somehow... 

.

Maybe on the tippy-toes?  (Where pants are optional because comfort comes first...)

 Where the cookout house has become a racetrack for princesses on Big Wheels

And gorgeous cousins cooperate for group pictures

Where birthday girls spin in endless pirouettes while younger cousins climb into buckets in the background

Where there's always a party, even if it's just the immediate family

And where your niece watches on as your sixteen-month old tackles a giant sun-shaped balloon

Visits to Grammie's - I think the whole family would be with me on this one - this is our simple pleasure.

(Even if the whole place does a sigh of relief when my rowdy party of five heads home.)

We love you, Grammie!  (And Grandaddy too.)

Linking up with Dayle today at...

Top Ten Mom Things...

As many of you well know, I've been at this whole "Mom Things" thing for over a year now.  I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed just noticing the small things my kids do that make me smile/cringe/nearly wet my pants...you get the picture.  While I've got plenty more up my sleeve, I'm going to do a little something different this week (thanks to a prompt over at Work, Wife, Mom...Life! for Working Mommy Wednesday, where Julia has challenged us to write a Top Ten...of anything.


Well, I'm re-posting my top ten favorite Mom Things from the past fifty-two (whoa!) posts of Mom Things.  Some of those oldies were pretty good, if I might say so myself.  (Okay, that was nothing but a bold-faced brag.  I promise not to do it again.)

Without further ado, I give you my personal Top 10 Favorite Mom Things (in no particular order at all):

#1.  You've been out in public with a diapered child who just filled their britches with #2, only to realize you're out of wipes. BUT, you have a glove compartment full of Zaxby's napkins and half of a bottle of water. No wipes? No problem.

#2.  In an effort to stay on top of things, you slipped a sympathy card in your purse so you could send it from work when you had a moment to breathe.  Weeks pass, and you discover the card in your purse.  That's when Mommy-brain kicks in and, to your own horror, you can't remember who died.

#3.  You fear going to the pediatrician's office, especially for well-child check ups because you know the place is teeming with germs.  If you're all healthy two or three days later, you thank your lucky stars you made it through unscathed, and vow to write a thank you note to Purell and immunity supporting Flintstone vitamins for making it all possible.

#4.  You've answered the door to a solicitor on a Saturday morning sans make-up, with hair disheveled, mismatching pj's on, and a kid in Ninja Turtle costume at your side, only to be asked if the man or woman of the house was home.  Yeah, lady.  You're looking at her.

#5.  You learned the hard way that giving your child sugar wafers  in the grocery store is a bad way to keep them occupied.  Unless, of course, it's your goal to have a hyperactive two year old that sprints and squeals up and down the aisles of Kroger.  (Fortunately, you learned this when you only had one child to contend with.)

#6a.  You pick your son up from school to find him wearing only his undershirt.  His response after you ask him where his shirt is:  "I lost it."  You ponder, momentarily, how one can "lose" a shirt, but don't even bother asking.

#6b.  You subsequently head to the school's Lost and Found and leave with four other items that he "lost" at school over the course of the year, including his lunchbox, two jackets, and his spirit day t-shirt.

#7.  Because it was Easter, you attempted to get all of your kids to smile and look at the camera, and you got this in the process -

If that doesn't sum it all up in one picture, nothing does.

#8.  You're proud of your little ones for learning to share....but if they'd been selfish with the Pink Eye, you'd have been okay with that.

#9.  You liken white pants on toddlers to unicorns.  They're pretty but you don't believe in them.

#10.  When your six year old tells you he can run a mile faster than you, you tell him to put his running shoes on.  About half a mile into it, he eats crow.  And while you feel a little bit bad about saying, "Booyah!" to a little boy, you think you made an excellent point about the dangers of talking smack.

Extra Credit #11.  At any point, your three year old has streaked completely naked across your front yard.  And you're certain that your reaction to her running naked across the neighborhood (which involved flailing of limbs and shrieking of "ABBY!!!  Come here RIGHT NOW!") drew way more attention than her tiny, lighting fast hiney did in the first place.

Linking up today also with Mommy of a Monster (I mean toddler) at

Over-the-top October

One of the things I love most about this little old blog is the power it has to hold me accountable.  For some reason, I feel like if I post something on here for "the entire world" (or handful of faithful readers) to see, that I'm somehow contractually bound to accomplish/complete/aspire to achieve whatever it was that I posted.

Back in April it was a 30-day exercise challenge.  Last October I began the 101 list (which, by the way, I haven't forgotten about).  But this October, I'm doing something drastic.

I'm giving up Facebook.

For the normal person, this might not be such a huge deal, but for me, a slightly-abnormal, highly-addicted person, it is.

Would you believe the motivation for this is 101-list related?  (See how I tied that all together?)

Numbers 5 and 6 on the ol' list are to take and pass the Professional Engineer Exam, respectively.  The PE Exam is a licensing exam, which, if I pass, would give me the power to approve construction plans with the mighty power of my very own stamp.  It's a huge responsibility (read: liability); one that could and should make me more desirable to employers.  I registered to take the exam when it's given on October 29th which leaves me just 3.5 weeks left to prepare.  (Or 3.5 weeks to prepare.  Period.  Because I'm a procrastinator in the worst way.)

I've known it was coming since April.  Actually I've known it was coming since I passed the first hurdle, the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam, in April of 2005.  So yes, I'm quite the procrastinator.  I'm not sure this will ever change.

Well I have a plan.

Number 1 on that ol' list is to get up when Sam gets up for an entire month.  I've resisted this up to this point because he gets up before the rooster.  Shoot, he gets up before the college kids have gone to sleep.  When his alarm goes off around 4:30am, I'm ordinarily a useless heap of mangled sheet, covers, and grumbles.  Yesterday, however, I got up, staggered over to my programmable coffee maker which was waiting for me with the nectar of the gods a fresh pot of nearly-instant energy.  And I sat at the kitchen table that I'd actually de-cluttered and de-syruped from breakfast-for-dinner night the evening before with a stack of reference materials, practice problems (and solutions of course), my trusty calculator, and a brand spankin' new pencil and notebook.

And I worked problems until it was time to wake the kids and dash like mad to only be 15 minutes late to work.  (Because apparently getting up 2 hours early doesn't change that.)

And then this morning, I did it again.

Tomorrow, I will do it again.

I have to say, it's making me feel a little bit like a soldier.  You know....that whole "We do more by 9 in the morning than most people do in an entire day" thing.  I can't believe I'm about to admit that I almost like it.  And I also can't believe that I'm about to admit that I seem to remember a lot more stuff from college than I thought.

Keeping with the theme of being an eternal pessimist realist, I whole-heartedly believe that I will not pass it the first time.  The pass rate for the civil portion of the test is 64% for first-time test-takers, lower than nearly all of the other disciplines.  If I go in expecting to bomb it, imagine how pleasantly surprised I would be to pass.  (Man, "pleasantly surprised" would be the understatement of my life.)  Right?  Okay, so that's not super hopeful, but that's what I do.

In other completely-unrelated, October news, we wished our beautiful princess a Happy 4th Birthday last weekend.  Her birthday is sandwiched between her Grammie's and Aunt Celeste's birthdays, so we make it simple and celebrate them all together.

In the interest of brevity (and thanks to a camera I borrowed from my boss while our's is off being repaired), here is the shot of the weekend.  Grammie's five grandkids, all looking in the general camera direction.

A night shot of Grammie's cookout house.  I know we're not supposed to covet, but man, that place is awesome.

 An elated birthday girl!

After a rousing game of Pin the Cupcake on Pinkalicious (during which Abby clearly cheated), cousin Chloe and little Sarah discuss pink cupcakes.

A "whole barnyard full" of My Little Ponies.

Th-th-th-that's all, folks!

(But if you wouldn't mind praying for me between now and October 29th, I'd truly appreciate it!)

Mom Things: If I have to sing the ABC's one more time...

Your rain gear options are a miniature Spiderman umbrella or a miniature Disney Princess umbrella.  And you're only momentarily embarrassed for using either of them as you enter your place of business.

Your almost-four-year-old thinks it's really funny to make up words and phrases and then loudly proclaim them. Her most recent:  "Time for coity!" followed by riotous laughter.  And while you're sure she doesn't know what that sounds like and you have absolutely no idea what it means when she says it, you really, really want her to stop.  (You probably shouldn't have laughed so hard the first time she yelled it.)

You've substituted outdoor rain-play for baths when pressed for time.

You never imagined you would ever utter the words, "No capes at the dinner table" or "Put the light-saber away".  Whose child is that?

You posed a hypothetical stranger-danger situation to your candy-loving three year old in the form of, "If a strange man drives up while you're playing in the yard and offers you candy, what do you say?"  It shouldn't have a surprised you at all when she replied without hesitation, "Yes, please."  (At least she has good manners?)

You're glad that your kids like Gogurt for the convenience factor but, personally, you find it utterly repulsive.

You have to find the delicate balance between fearing for your six year old's life and allowing him the freedom to explore nature (in the form of a Copperhead in the mountains of north Georgia).

While doing some exercises on your Wii, you have one personal trainer heckling you ("I could do that.  Easy.") and one cheerleader ("You're doing great, Mommy!  Keep it up!  Run faster!").

You completely regret letting your toddler try the Flavor Blasted Goldfish, because now she snubs regular Goldfish as an inferior snack.

After a conversation about your toddler's pretty hair, you reminisce back to the day when everyone saw her bald little head and just knew she was a boy, regardless of the clothes she was wearing.

(Look at her little curls now....cute!)

Linking up...per the usual...

Brotherhood at its finest

My grandfather was more spontaneous than I could ever dream of becoming.  On a moment's notice, he would instruct my sister and me to get in the truck.  We knew better than to ask where we were going.  It wouldn't have mattered anyway.  He didn't know either.

It might be an adventure to a fishing hole he used to frequent when he was a little boy himself.  The fishing poles and tackle were always available in the back of his pick-up truck.  He might take us to visit an old home-bound friend.  He might drive us around the soybean-lined country roads of the eastern shore of Maryland for hours with no destination at all.  He might tell us stories, or he might sit silently while I passed the time by watching his keychains swing to and fro in the ignition.

One of these adventures took us an hour from my grandfather's tiny home town to the Shad Landing State Park.  He took us down the pier and we set up lines for crabbing, which were nothing more than pieces of chicken tied to the end of a string that we tied to one of the pilings.  He struck up a conversation with just about every single person on the pier that day.  I can honestly say that I know where my mom gets that trait.  I wiped sweat off my brow as I watched him help a friend he hadn't met more than five minutes prior reel in a sting-ray from the waters of the Pocomoke River.

After a few hours of that, we loaded up in the truck and headed home.  I don't even remember if we actually caught any crabs.  I guess it really doesn't matter.  The memory remains.

On the ride home, down one of the more highway-like roads, my grandfather suddenly pulled over onto the shoulder and hopped out of the truck.  I watched with bewilderment at the fact that his was not the only car on the shoulder.  They all were.  I peered out the window trying to figure out what was going on. I saw a highway, lined with men and some women standing at attention, hats off, arms at their sides.

Out of respect.

You see, there was a funeral procession going by.  Every car in line had their flashers and headlights on, following the car in front of them slowly, stretching for as far as the eye could see, escorted in the front and back by police cars.

Even though I was so young, the gravity of that moment hit me at the core.

It wasn't just a person here or there.  It was every single vehicle on the road, pulled over to the side.  Showing respect for the life that was just lost.  And the families who were grieving that loss.

It was such a symbol of love.  For a fellow man or woman.  One that they didn't even know.

What a beautiful illustration of brotherhood that was and remains for me.

I am so grateful to have known my grandfather's beautiful soul.  This is just one of many amazing memories I have of that man, who taught me so very much about life in the seventeen years I was privileged to share with him here on earth.

And what an exciting promise it is for me to know that when I get to heaven, my grandfather and every single one of my brothers and sisters in Christ will be lining the highway, standing at attention...just waiting to greet me.

Unwrapping this gift alongside so many others today...