Grace and Thanksgiving Day

I think this painting hung in Aunt Liz and Uncle John's kitchen above their table. As a child I would sit at the table waiting on the grown-ups to tell us it was time to fill our plates, and I would stare endlessly at this photo. I thought of how disappointed I would be if someone gave me just soup and bread.

As I grew older, but not wiser, I would stare at this photo and wonder why the man even bothered praying because no one else was at the table with him. Who would know if he prayed or not?

It's been a while since I've been to Aunt Liz and Uncle John's home--they've moved; I've moved. We've seen each other and see each other regularly. I'm not sure what happened to that photo, if they still have it. I'm not sure where they got it or why they had it. But it's a photo that has set itself on my mind and my heart this year.

If someone gave me soup and bread, I'd be grateful. And I hope that when I have soup and bread, I can pass it on to the person who's been praying for it.

I don't necessarily bow my head publicly to give thanks, but I've learned to weave whispers of gratitude throughout my day ... even when, maybe especially when, no one is watching.

I hope The Daughters can have their own evolution of thankfulness. I hope they realize to be thankful for every event, every thing, every person, every grain of bread and every drop of soup. And I hope they always possess a thankful heart.

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Those things and people and situations and ideas for which I am thankful ... it's never-ending.

The prayer I whisper that all people may have such things and people and situations in their lives ... it's never-ending as well.

Friday Five: This Ain't Her Momma's Sleepover

Daughter 1 is having her first sleepover of the school year tonight. We put some tight conditions on it--basically we made her clean the house. (Her room, however, is still not clean, but we really like her sweet friend, so we said yes.) Last night as I kissed her goodnight, I told her all about my sleepovers when I was younger. She assured me that she probably wouldn't do any of these things.

1. We rode our bikes all over the neighborhood. I grew up in an isolated neighborhood. It was two-miles from town, had its own (volunteer) fire department, its own school, three churches and a convenience store where we could buy a single stick of Sixlets for a penny. I explained how cool we felt being footloose (sorta) and fancy free to spend our quarter anyway we wanted. Daughter 1 asked if I could make an ice cream sundae bar for them after dinner.

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2. We turned the TV off when we went to sleep. We didn't go to sleep, let's be clear about that. We turned the TV off so that we could record our favorite songs from the radio onto our way cool, see-through Memorex cassettes. We'd be very quiet ... maybe even hold our breath ... as one song ended and another song began. If it was the song we wanted, usually something by Michael Jackson or the Go-Gos, we'd press our finger onto the play and record buttons at the same time really quick. Voila! We had just "downloaded" a song like a boss. Daughter 1 informed me she'd already made her sleepover playlist.


3. We prank-called people. "Do you have Prince Albert in a can? You'd better let him out so he can breath." Click.

"Is your refrigerator running? You'd better go catch it." Click.

"Hello? Why'd you call me? No you called me. Yes, I'm sure you called me." Click.

Daughter 1 wondered why the people didn't use caller ID to call us back, and she also wanted to know what I meant when I said click while telling my story.

4. We read all the good period part of Are You There God, It's Me Margaret. I told her how we loved that view into a very taboo stubject: periods. Really, no one talked about the birds and the bees but Judy Blume. Daughter 1 said they talked about periods at lunch but she wanted to know if Margaret was on Twitter. (Disclaimer: We really read page 96 of Forever over and over and over again--it's the part where Katherine and Michael do it.)

5. We woke up early and rode our bikes again. When morning would roll around, we'd eat a bowl of cereal while we watched an episode of Scooby Doo and then we'd hit the streets again on our bikes. We'd ride up to the school and play, maybe even crawl up on the roof because we could. We'd ride down to the park and ride through the creek until we were completely muddy and soaking wet. We'd go home when the cereal wore off and our tummies were grumbly again. Daughter 1 said they'd nuke some bacon and frozen waffles before checking out the new uploads to YouTube.

Oh, the stories she'll have to tell her kids.

When I searched flicker for slumber party pictures, this popped up. It reminded me why I never watched scary movies at slumber parties. It also reminded me that I'm not the oddest duck in this virtual pond. It also made me say, "DoubleU Tee Eff" right out loud in the middle of my living room.
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Friday Flashback: Candy-holic

Since this week seems to be all about my cousin Whitney (creator of Stoplight Golight and stealer of candy, among other claims to fame), I decided to end the week with yet another Whitney story.

When I was about ten (Whitney and my sister were about six), we took a trip from Oklahoma to New Jersey to see Whitney and her family, who had been uprooted from the heartland and dumped into a land with no Mexican food. We drove for about seventeen days (I think ... it might not have been quite that long) and finally arrived in New Jersey. Before going to see my mom's sister, Kay and her family, we settled into our hotel room.

Season of Giving AWAY: On The Naughty List

Long before Jim Morrison asked us to light his fire, there was me. (Actually, I just Googled that and that particular song by The Doors was released three years before I was born. Dammit! Every good opening gets spoiled. I'll try again.)

Probably my favorite part of Christmas is the candle light, despite my sordid history with Christmas Eve Candles. Oh, sure--we have candles throughout our house year round. On particularly tiring days, we have them burning all night long. (I'd like to publicly thank God for not allowing our house to burn down at the hands of my own stupidity.) But, candlelight at Christmas? There's nothing like it.

The Season of Giving AWAY: Nutty Family

Christmas Day was always one of my most favorite days of the whole year long. My sister and I would wake up early and see what Santa had left us. Then we'd all load up into the car and drive down to my Aunt Liz and Uncle John's home in Mounds, OK, where my mom's sister and her other brother and their families would also gather for food and presents and more food. When we were all together, there were 16 of us. It was always a great day.

ThanksBlogging: Danger Zone

As a girl, my family would always travel to Dallas-about a six hour trip-to have Thanksgiving with my Dad's brother Mac and his family. His aunt, my Great Aunt Janie (that was exactly as we would address her, too) and his cousin Winifred would be there as well from Atlanta. It was always a fancy, dress-up, sit down, pass-the-creamed-peas type of shin-dig. There were no hats at the table. The girls wore skirts and our hair had to be brushed. Plus, we had to wear shoes. Fancy Schmancy.

Friday Flashback: When Susie Pee'd On A Prep

My best friend in high school was Susie. Susie was about six inches shorter than I was, thin and blonde. We couldn't have looked more different if we had tried. She was smart, but she always copied my homework... not always, just Biology. I thought she was cool because she had her own phone and phone line in her own room. She thought I was cool because I freely cussed.

Flashback Friday: I blame Aerosmith

I was a sophomore in college and my last Friday class was cancelled. This meant, I was headed home by 10:00 that morning. (Gawd, I miss college schedules!) I threw my laundry together and dug through my dorm room for twenty-five cents for tolls. I found five nickels. I grabbed my cassingle of "Janie's Got A Gun," and I headed home.

Friday Flashback: Dead or Alive

When I a freshman in high school, I had a crush on a guy named "John"... but he sat next to me in my freshman English class (maybe others), and I couldn't very well doodle "John" all over my notebooks, so I wrote "Jon" instead. I was quick on my feet for a 14-year-old, that's for sure.

Friday Flashback: I like shiny things

In first grade I wanted to experience it all. I wanted to write my numbers all the way to 100.  I wanted to jump on the trampoline and recite my words.  I wanted to make a J that actually curved the right way at the bottom. But more than anything else, I wanted a charm bracelet like my friend's bracelet.

Friday Flashback: Who taught them?

One spring day in seventh grade, my social studies teacher, Mrs. Bundren, said we were going to discuss the current events in Nicaragua.  I think.  I have no idea if she was actually speaking of Nicaragua or not, because I was not fully tuned in and I was almost 13 years old, so that means my brain was not functioning in any way that was considered useful.  But, whether it was Nicaragua or not is beside the point.  Maybe this whole paragraph is beside the point.  Stick with me.  It's a good story nonetheless.

Friday Flashback: Big hair

The summer I turned 16, someone could have paid me pennies on the dollar to drive a hearse around with warm bodies in it, and I'd have jumped at the chance. I had waited my whole life to drive and I couldn't drive enough.

One late summer afternoon, after my mom had returned to her job at the high school, but before school actually commenced, my sister and I were home alone.  She was a home body, and I couldn't convince her that we needed to go anywhere... well, anywhere that involved my driving.

After an afternoon of General Hospital, I hit a nerve with my entering-middle-school sister:  She needed a new hair cut.  I think I even offered to pay for it.  Anything to drive was my motto.  I drove her to the farthest away hair place I could think of.  It was a walk-in only place, and we sat in the waiting room browsing through the hundreds of hair magazines.  Finally, we settled on a cute little, short 'do, and Bambi called her back to "the chair".

Funny thing happened while she was in the chair (or shortly thereafter):  Puberty hit and her normally straight and compliant hair became curly and wily and unruly.  She came by it honestly as our daddy had naturally curly hair - it just never occurred to us that we'd have any of his wave... that is until her hair started to grow out.

It was the late 80s.  We should have just gone with it instead of trying to tame it.  But we didn't.  We fought with it and it fought back.  Picture day that year was a prime example of big hair getting bigger.

My sister was mortified.  In fact, I can hear her now screaming at me to remove this picture from The Internets.  If you listen very carefully, you can probably hear her too - wherever you are.

Of course, she's forgetting the big picture here:  It's not that her hair looked bad.  It's not that she spent her first year in middle school growing out the biggest 'fro ever to be seen on the whitest chick in a three-state area.  It's that I got to drive. 

She's always been self-absorbed that way.

The Waffle House Incident

Fifteen years ago this week, The Dad asked me out.  I said no.  I had places to go and people to see!  Thank heavens he didn't give up on me.  He asked me out again and I was out of town.  Then he asked me out a third time and I said yes.

Friday Flashback: Camping Trip

My parents brought home the coolest thing for us when I was about 10 years old:  They brought home a pull-out, pop-up camper.  The two double-sized beds would pull of out the sides and the middle would become a recessed area where we could store our knapsacks and our ice chests and our water jug.  It was the life, I tell ya.  Almost every weekend, we'd hook up the camper to the back of my daddy's  truck and head 15-miles west of our home to camp at that state park:  Home of 42-million tarantulas.

Flashback Friday

When we would take family vacations when I was little and we would finally stop for the night at a road side motor inn, my little sister and I would always get stuck sharing a bed.  I totally didn't think this was fair because my sister always slept right up against me and would complain that I never gave her enough room.  She'd hold her hands against the bed and measure that she had about 24 inches.  By the time she'd hold her hands in the air, though, they'd be 3 centimeters apart.

My first writing experience

I'm at the OWFI Storyweavers conference in Oklahoma City this weekend learning to be better at what I love to do:  Writing.

Aren't you glad I returned to
writing instead of honing in on
my softball skills??

I've been writing since I was in the second grade - SECOND GRADE.  I was very much into Encyclopedia Brown and his mysteries, so I decided that I would write my own mystery.