Is There Anything Sweeter

Than a baby boy? Even if he is almost 22 years old! This is my baby boy this afternoon. Sleeping like a little baby. He had his wisdom teeth extracted and he did very well. He is just like his mom, though. He's not a very good patient. And he's not a patient patient either. He's ready to be up and going. He doesn't want to be down for long. He's making plans for the weekend already.

Look who is keeping him company. Bandit. She loves to sit in your lap, especially when you have a blanket.

And even more especially when you have my Snoopy blanket in your lap. Yes, you heard me right. I've let Ross use my Snoopy blanket while he's recuperating. It works miracles, so I'm letting him borrow it.

Okay, gals. That's it for this day's post. Gotta get ready to go to the gym! When I sit in the sauna, it feels like I'm sitting on my porch. It's unbearably hot.

Miscellaneous Monday

Isn't the snow beautiful? So cold and light.

But today it wasn't snowing. Instead the thermometer in my car showed the temp outside at 102 degrees. Hot and heavy.

This is some serious heat that we're having in Georgia. I'm sure it's been this hot before, maybe even last summer, but thank goodness I've forgotten about it. I took Bandit for a very short walk this afternoon. She was panting and I had sweat running down my back. We came back inside.

I had to work this morning downtown. I had to walk a couple of blocks, but it was about 9 a.m., so it wasn't too bad. I was on the 42nd floor of this building and the view was amazing, although it's starting to look a little smoggy with this stifling heat and pollution mixed together.

We've had about 1,457 more cucumbers from the garden. And even though I love cucumbers, you can only eat so many. So I'm making another batch of pickles. I feel like Aunt Bea on The Andy Griffith Show. She was a pickle making fool and apparently I am too. They really are good, though, if I do say so myself.

They're soaking in pickling lime and getting their crunch on. I'm going to have to stay up till about midnight to get through the process so that tomorrow I can put them in jars. I will not be going in the pickle making business. Too much work!

Last night everyone came over for homemade ice cream. I made peach and vanilla. The peach was very good. The vanilla tasted like milk, salt and vanilla flavoring dumped in a glass. It was horrible. I was embarrassed it was so bad.

The boys had some of their friends over too. I hope they didn't eat the vanilla. Swimming was the thing to do. The pool water isn't even refreshing right now. I ran water in it all afternoon yesterday trying to cool it off for the swimmers. All it did was run up my water bill. I brought out the Sky Ball and Wiffle bat, so they got out of the pool and played ball.

Of course, every bug in Henry County heard we were going to be outside, so they crashed the party. I love this picture of Meaghan and Eli. I think Eli was scratching. I mean, the mosquitoes were pigging out.

This is another favorite. Ross and my dad. Love those two!

Oakland Cemetery was great. I'm going to do a separate post with some of my pics. It's such a beautiful place. If you've never been, I definitely recommend it. It's just beautiful.

Ross is having his wisdom teeth removed Thursday morning, so another request to add to your prayer list, please. He'll be put under general anesthesia to have it done. I figure it'll probably be my last time to really baby my 21-almost-22-year-old. And honey, I'm gonna baby him good.

Gotta go. While my pickles are soaking, I've gotta soak my foot. I've got an ingrown toenail that I had taken out Saturday and it's throbbing.

Till next time...

A Work In Progress

Y'all please excuse the appearance of my blog right now. It's under construction. I've spent a few hours this morning trying to make it look prettier and I've got to get going and do other things.


Tonight I'm going to a Photography Workshop at the Historic Oakland Cemetery. It's where Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind is buried, among many others. I'm excited about going and learning how to make better pictures, especially at night.



So right now my blog will just have to look kinda shabby. Maybe tomorrow I'll have some wonderful pictures to share with y'all.

My migraine has subsided enough for me to get out and do some things. I stayed in the bed almost the entire day yesterday, which is something I never do and I don't enjoy it at all. But I'm thankful I didn't have to work and I didn't have anything pressing that I had to get done. I'd like to go outside by the pool and enjoy the sun, but it's just too dang hot. Even if you're by the pool. Right now the pool feels like if you 'had a bar of soap, you could take yourself a nice bath. In other words, it's not very refreshing.

I'm heading out the door in search of a camera bag to hold all my gadgets.

Till the next time. Have a happy Saturday! Stay cool. Girls, it's nearly 100 degrees here in the A-T-L.

Ugh

I asked Jeff to make my picture before he left for work this morning. I thought I'd share it with y'all.

I know you're all wondering where I got the lovely purple sequin blouse, but I've had it so long I honestly can't remember where I got it. And yeah, I know, doesn't my hair grow out quickly? How do you like the color? It's a nice change.

But really, though, I feel like poor Barbie today. I've got a big, fat migraine headache. I don't get them too often, but when I do they are so very, very painful. I'm beginning to notice a new aura that comes before the headache. Yesterday I was so nauseous. Honestly, all week I've felt just a little out of it. I'd feel dizzy when I was working out and I normally don't. Just little things all week and I think they were leading up to this massive migraine. Don't worry, it's just a migraine. I'd know it anywhere. It's just one of the granddaddies instead of one of the babies.

I'm so hoping to feel better in time for lunch today. My aunties and my mom are having lunch with my great aunt for her birthday. I haven't seen a lot of them in several weeks and I miss them. I need to take medicine and lie down for a bit, cross my fingers and hope it passes soon. So that's what I'm gonna do.

Till next time, my sweeties, LLL.

Senior Picture Day

Cam's senior picture day went off without a hitch. Except for the fact that they were running an hour and a half behind. We're having some casual pictures made in the fall when it's cooler and the leaves are changing. He wants them to be made outside. The pictures that were taken yesterday were the formal pictures. You know, the one picture that you always remember. The one that goes in your senior yearbook. The one that you show your kids and grandkids. I wanted it to be just right. Imagine that.

As y'all may know, Cam's lost 65 pounds. I know. Crazy, isn't it? Seems his stubborn personality is also a very determined one. I have no doubt that he'll be able to do anything in life that he sets his mind to. That is a very exciting thought for me. I hope he'll decide to do something wonderful.

Of course, he was always gorgeous to me, but look how he looks now. He wears a size small shirt and a 30 waist in shorts and pants. Unreal. He works out every day and watches what he eats. Right now he's following a workout diet and eating a certain amount of carbs, proteins, etc. I am so, so proud of him.

But back to the senior picture day. We got there and were waiting along with a lot of other kids and a few parents. His best friend, Drew, and his mom were also there waiting. Drew's appointment was about 30 minutes before Cam's. When it came time for Cam to have his made, they put a size 44 jacket on him. It swallowed him. Had I not been there and been insistent, they would've made his picture wearing a jacket that looked like it'd fit Frankenstein. My insistence on finding a jacket that fit seemed to embarrass Cam, but in the end they found the right size and he looked so handsome and grown. I did tear up.

After the pictures, we went school shopping. Y'all probably know what that means. Mom opens her wallet and empties it out. He has bought a lot of clothes over the summer while he's been working and paid for them himself. I took him to the Polo store and let him get several things. As most of you would do, I'm sure, I would spend my last dime on my kids. Then we went to Belk and he got a couple more things and I managed to get my shopping fix that I missed the day I went to Buford by buying myself one or two or three things.

We also had lunch. At QuikTrip. I had a taquito and he had a bag of beef jerky and a bottle of water. Nice.

I enjoyed the day with my boy and I'm so thankful that after almost 18 years of hard, hard work I can say Jeff and I have raised another fine fella.

Till next time.

Stevie B's and Super Bad

Yesterday, I got kind of crazy and decided I needed a Buford fix. I wanted to go to some of the stores that are at the Mall of Georgia. I had nothing in particular in mind, but for me, a little retail therapy is always the doctor's order.

Alayna was at a friend's house, so Suz just had her boys. We thought we'd go to Stevie B's for a pizza pig out. Which we did. I had pizza of every kind. I must say, though, I didn't try the macaroni and cheese pizza, but Eli did and thought it was very good.

Anyway, we THOUGHT that we'd have lunch and then the boys would want to go back home and we could resume our therapy at the mall. But alas, it was not to be. Eli had set in his mind that he needed a new toy from the Cars movie. He had seen it at Target the night before and he was looking for ways to earn the money to buy it. You'd think he was one of my kids because of the way he gets fixated on something. He just wasn't going to stop until he went to the Target. He had already earned one dollar by cleaning Suz's bathroom mirror with a Wet One. I think it streaked the mirror, but she paid him anyway. What a good mama. Then along came me and I just "loaned" him the rest of the money that he needed to buy it. We went to two Targets, a Walmart and Goodwill before we determined that retail therapy with a six-year-old and a twelve-year-old boy isn't as therapeutic as it should be. So we went home.

It wasn't long before it was time for the boys' football practice. I haven't seen football practice in a few years, so I was definitely excited. These are Eli's cleats.


Super Bad! And honey, let me tell you. He is Super Bad. I think he's going to be a superstar! He absolutely loves it and has an endless supply of energy. After practice, he wanted to run around the track. Can you see the blue dot on his cleat? Well, that's slushee. Someone was getting rich by selling a cup full of slushee for $3.

Reid also had practice at the same field, so I got to watch both of them practice. I enjoyed it very much. I wish they lived closer because I'd go more often. I used to love to watch Cam's football practice. I hardly ever missed one.

So it was a great day. I love those boys and I think they love me too. They always beg me to stay and I always hate to leave.

Today is a big day for me. Today I take Cam to have his formal senior portraits made. I have butterflies and a big lump in my throat just to type that. I CANNOT believe that he is about to be in his last year of high school. Where have the years gone? I'll take my Kleenex because I know it will be emotional for me.

Till next time.

Nature's Bounty

Jeff's garden was amazing. We have had cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. One afternoon alone he picked 70 tomatoes.

Seventy tomatoes turned into 28 pints of salsa. And 14 cucumbers turned into 12 pints of pickles.

I have always admired women of older days who canned and froze their veggies so their families could enjoy them all through the year. Both my grandmothers and my mother were three of those kind of women. I remember my mama being up to her elbows cutting corn off the cob to freeze. That creamy goodness making the biggest mess.

My mind's eye sees MaMa Howell rocking in her chair on the front porch shelling beans. Sometimes she and some of my aunts and my mom would get together on a hot summer afternoon and shell beans or peas or something else from the garden. We cousins would get to play and have bologna sandwiches for lunch.

When MaMa Kimball was living, there was rarely a meal that I had at her house that didn't include some sort of field pea. She must've froze a million bags.

These women are my heroes. Especially now that I'm grown up and see how much work they put into taking care of their families, which included me. They'd pull weeds around the veggies. Then they'd have to pick them. And you couldn't pick them in shorts and a tank top. Oh, no, the bugs would eat you alive. They'd have to put on long sleeves and pants. Have you ever picked a row of butterbeans half a mile long in July or August wearing pants and long sleeves? I sure haven't.

But weeding and picking the vegetables almost seems easy compared to how much work it is to put them away. Shelling, shucking, peeling. As a little girl, I remember shelling butterbeans until the skin behind my thumb would be sore. Desperately trying to get every silk off the ears corn. My mama wouldn't allow you to leave too many on there.

Nowadays, corn comes frozen in a log. You can get a bag of butterbeans for a couple of dollars. It's pretty good, for sure. Is it as good as what grew in my daddy's garden and what my mama worked her fingers to the bone for us to eat? Heck no.

So feeling nostalgic, I guess, or crazy, more than likely, I decided to put away some of the things that Jeff grew. He pretty much had a salsa and pickle garden. Tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. My nails are stained orange from the tomatoes. I won't be biting my nails for a good long while because every time my finger goes to my lips, my mouth catches on fire from the peppers. My hands smell like they've been caressed with Eau de Onion hand lotion.

But I can now include myself in the same category with my mama and my grandmothers. My heroes. And that makes A Girl Named Kelly Kelly very proud.

Till next time...