Home!

For the last few days, I have longed to be home. It was wonderful visiting the family, I had lots of fun, ate lots of great food, played games, was entertained by my awesome nephew, Racer. My brother is always fun, and my folks were relaxed and comfortable to be around. But I was starting to miss normal. My bed, my kitchen, my personal bathroom, alone time, privacy, loud music, my television shows. You know…home!

We made it home late this afternoon. Tired and worn. Facing the messy house that we left last week. In addition to the unpacking, the laundry, all the cleaning that I knew we had to accomplish, I found an unexpected gift in the garage fridge. Nine frozen and exploded sugary sodas! Coke, Pepsi, Sprite…coating the remaining contents and all of the walls of the refrigerator! I’ve kept pop out there for 7 1/2 years for Starr’s friends to use, in all that time, we have never had anything like this happen.

Argh!

After cleaning to the limits of my patience, I too am coated with sticky coke!

Welcome home! It’s good to be back.

Our Delayed Holiday

Starr and I are visiting my parents today. We are having Christmas Eve tonight and Christmas tomorrow. My brother DJ and his favorite kiddo, Racer are on their way and will join us late this afternoon.

It isn’t always easy to get together on the holiday’s with ex’s, other families and distance to consider. In fact, Starr claims that this is the first time in seven years that we have been able to do it. So…we slide the day over a couple of days to accommodate? Who cares? It doesn’t matter to us!

Growing up, we often had to fit Christmas into dad’s work schedule. As an airline pilot he wasn’t always home at the right time, so instead of celebrating without him, we did it early or late so that the family could be together.

In the meantime, we cook and prep. We look forward to DJ and Racer arriving and spending time together. Take one last trip to the grocery store. Maybe play some cards. Have a glass of wine. Watch the weather, and pray that DJ and Racer stay safe on the road.

**checks the weather report**

**chews fingernails**

Catching up. Thanksgiving.

I have been really absent lately, I’ve been under the weather. My cold has morphed into bronchitis and hasn’t been much fun. Blech. So this post is a little this-and-that.

Starr is home for the holiday break…although she decided to go out of town right away to visit some of her nearby high school–now college–friends who are still in classes through Tuesday, so I haven’t really seen much of her. Less than normal really. Which is good in many ways.

She has decided to quit her job at the Aveda salon, which she loved, but the commute…via me…wasn’t working and she was disengaging from her sorority experience and from college. She will now be able to work more hours at her professor’s assistant job and be more involved with school. Hopefully her grades will improve! The side effect of this is that she won’t need me to drive her back and forth anymore. Good for more reasons than are obvious and sad because I will miss her!

“No worries!” She says. “I will still have laundry on the weekends for you!”

Um, yeah, about that…..I have already started saving quarters for her! I just know that they have laundry facilities in the sorority house!

She received good news last week in that she was named Philanthropy Chair for her sorority. She is both excited and nervous about this. It is the position she wanted, but she doesn’t want to mess it up! I am sure that she will do a great job, as long as there is no laundry involved!

We have planned our Thanksgiving menu, which is the same as always. Starr is resistant to new dishes and has her favorites that she will not give up! Sometimes I wonder how her future husband and family will fit into her idea of how things work!? I think they will just have to conform!

We will be having: Grandmother and Mammaw’s chicken n’ cornbread dressing, homemade yeast rolls, mashed potatoes, Starr’s favorite Gulliver’s corn, Mammaw’s candied sweet potatoes (which are all mine, Starr won’t eat them!) apple pie and ice cream. Since it is just the two of us usually, we get to do what we want! It’s a carb-o-licious feast!

We wish that we lived closer to family, so that we could share the day with them, but we also enjoy spending the day together. Old movies, cooking, food, playing card and/or board games…a day to take a true break from “life” and just be…together.

I am thankful to have a daughter who loves me completely, who gets me, and who loves spending time with me. Thankful to have a good relationship with my brother who I love dearly, and to be Aunt to the most amazing 8 year old EVER! I am thankful for Starr’s siblings and their love. I am thankful for DJT and his friendship…I really don’t know what I would have done without it lately. My parents, for their patience and for everything that they have ever done for me.

I pray for Sunny and her family, during these emotional holidays, as well as each and every day. I send them my love and wish for continued healing. I know they miss her terribly. Which is a gross understatement, words are truly inadequate.

I am thankful to have been Sunny’s friend, to have known her, loved her and been loved by her.

We miss you!  …understatement…

A Break From the Normal Day-to-Day

 

My brother, DJ, was in town for the weekend! It was both a busy and a good weekend. We visited some of the local scenic treasures, drank some beer, ate some food…some at home, some out…and watched some silly movies. I think we packed an appropriate amount of things into the weekend. Maybe it was good that the 5k was moved (which was his original goal…to run Starr’s race) to another weekend so that we could just be for a while.

I finally carried my camera around with me instead of relying on my cell phone, but I didn’t stop to take many pictures. I did take a few shots at an old cemetery. We were leaving when DJ said “did you get a picture of that gate?” Well, no…but I should have…so I did.

Starr hung out with us as much as she could, overall, it was an awesome weekend! One of my favorite moments was a small one. Listening to DJ’s little boy’s voicemail message that went something like this:

“Hi daddy! It’s Racer. Call me back…but not right away because I have to go the bathroom!”

I wish that we could have seen him too!!

Recreated

A few months ago I issued a challenge to my brother, DJ, to recreate a picture from his youth based on the photos I found on the following website:

ManBaby

I ran into the following website the other day: ManBabies

Starr and I got a giggle out of it. I decided to try my hand on an old photo of brother DJ and his son, Racer. I literally suck at photoshop, but here is my result:

Racer’s Paper Coaster

My nephew, “Racer”, is a unique and wonderful child. He had a rough start, being born prematurely thirteen weeks early, weighing in at just two pounds two ounces. At seven years old now, he is a joy. He has always been very bright. Never quite behaving like the other children his age…but processing the world in his own Racer way. I watched him once put a puzzle together at the age of two or three….without looking at it. He was looking at something else while his hands moved the puzzle pieces into place…without hesitation.

He is always surprising us with his uncanny memory. When driving, he has always noticed and remembers how to get to and from different locations, even if he has done it only once. He gets agitated if you take a different route…you are doing it wrong! Also noticing the details along the route…street light configuration, etc. I was with him once and he was commenting on a street light that had been out on a recent trip and was now fixed….we were on the freeway at the time, he was talking about a light one block East of the exit ramp we were passing. Who notices things like that? Racer does!

He could read early and well, but chose not to share this information with his teacher who was convinced for quite a while that he was a non-reader. He finally shared his secret with her and showed her that he could indeed read. In kindergarten, the school wanted to move him to an autistic class. As part of the process, his parents took him to the doctor to verify their position that Racer wasn’t autistic. At one point during the examination the doctor placed a piece of paper on the table in between himself and Racer. He asked, “can you write your name here?” Racer picked up the pencil and wrote “ɹəɔɐɹ” so that it was correct from the doctors point of view…then he smiled and said “just joking!”

Last Friday night, Racer presented his dad, my brother DJ, with the drawing below and said “this is what we are making tonight.” And then they did…with dad doing some cutting and Racer placing the pieces based on his design. DJ sent me these pictures via cell phone:

The Blueprint

The Finished Rollercoaster

Racer…”The Mastermind”

He went on to build a little amusement park in the living room, with additional rides and retail shops.

Racer has also recently announced that he wants to start a web page. He said that it will be called “w w w dot paper friends world dot com.” Start a web site? Whoa. When I was talking to my brother on the phone, DJ repeated the name of the web site to me forgetting the word “world”. I knew that it was coming…I knew that Racer wouldn’t let it slide, and I had to laugh as I heard in the background…”No, dad, it’s w w w dot paper friends WORLD dot com!” Get it right!