back in the new year

Hey, pippa!

Moving has been crazy. We’re still getting settled, everything is in chaos, and yet, house guests are descending upon us this very night. (They invited themselves …. ahem and grrrrrrrrrr.)

After that, we’re headed to the deep dark middle of nowhere — although we live in our own version of that now — to hang with the tortoise in the drawer and in-laws in their underwear.

Good times. Good times.

I will report back here in the New Year with tales of country life, severed crows’ heads, marauding turkeys, and hopefully, no in-laws in underwear.

Have a blessed Christmas, everyone!

moving day!!!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!

More to come from our new mountain home, pippa!

happy thanksgiving!

Have a wonderful time of thanks with family and friends this weekend, pippa!

I’m thankful for each of you.

I’ll be in radio silence until after Moving Day Monday — then I’ll report back here. 😉

it’s about to getting really interesting or really boring

Now, I understand I’ve neglected my blog this summer and …. now the summer has turned to autumn, etc., and the weeds are growing taller and thicker each day. Lots of reasons. Just life getting in the way.

On top of all that we’ve been busy because we’re moving three weeks from today.

Up to the local mountains.

Yep. We’re about to become rednecks or hippies or hicks or peckerwoods or all of the above. It’s our dream, you see, being peckerwoods.

Well, it IS something MB and I have wanted to do for several years but it’s just never worked out until now. It’s been an interesting confluence of desires that brought this about. We’ve always wanted to try living up there and my parents, who also love the area, were looking for an investment property. So the four of us went house-hunting, a month-long exercise in holding my tongue which met with patchy success at best. Really, after a few weekends of clenched jaws and tight lips, I didn’t think there was any way the four of us would agree on a place since our tastes are quite divergent. But somehow we did. Miraculously, we did. We found a place we all agreed on, my parents made an offer, got an insanely low interest rate, and here were are.

Moving to the mountains.

We’re renting the place from them which I hope (fingers crossed) will be a positive experience. We’ll be living in the biggest place we’ve ever lived in in our whole marriage. I hardly know what to do with that much space and we definitely don’t have enough furniture to fill it all. There will be vast empty spaces begging to be filled — and begging for a long time, I imagine. Those of you who’ve been reading here for long time know we lost our condo four years ago and have been renting a different condo in a less-than-desirable neighborhood since then. It’s been rough. It messes with your head and how you see yourself, those kinds of losses. You move on, but it’s not the same you that moves on. After so much loss and disappointment for so long, you get used to wanting less and less for yourself. Or maybe you get used to expecting less and less for yourself. You erase all desires from your heart and mind and become an accidental Buddhist.

So while this is something we’d wanted and hoped for for a long time, we’re used to wanting and hoping for things that don’t happen. I’m still in a state of shock that it’s actually happening. We’ll be living in a yellow house with a green door nestled among the oaks and pines and quiet.

I’ve always wanted to live in a yellow house with a red door but we can definitely paint the door.

I’m pinching myself.

Well, in between panic attacks.

I don’t know for sure what life will be like up there. It’s a small town. Really small. It’s a tourist trap on weekends. Allow me to paint with a very broad brush here and say the place seems to be populated by both a fair share of right-wing homeschooling Christians and fair share of left-wing hemp-wearing hippies. Honestly, I’m not sure where we’ll fit in on my intolerant little spectrum there. (Narrow-minded town bigots, I guess.) I imagine we’re too hippie for the Christians and too Christian for the hippies, but we’ll have to wait and see. Maybe we’ll have to create our own offshoot of the spectrum and make everyone wonder how to fit into our special branch of things. “Are you a narrow-minded bigot! Come sit by us!”

I know it’s going to be an adjustment. I don’t know how big an adjustment it will be. I can’t know for sure until we’re there.

Oh, here’s the other thing:

For those of you who have read it, this town is the little town mentioned in our Maybe Church saga.

And, yes, “Joe” lives there.

Indeed he does.

As I said, we’ve wanted to do this for a long time, long before we ever set foot in that crazy place and experienced that bizarre scenario. We even shelved the whole idea for a couple of years after leaving because we knew that Joe lived there. But then MB said, “Look. We can’t keep making decisions based on Joe’s comfort level. He doesn’t get to control our lives.”

Still, I was dubious for a long time.

But MB’s right. Joe doesn’t get to influence our decisions anymore, so he didn’t.

We’re moving there despite the fact that he lives there. I’m sure we’ll run into him, his wife, his kids. I have no idea what will happen but I assume they will be as friendly now as they were then. Ahem. MB has declared that when he sees Joe, he’s going to run up to him, give him a huge bear hug, and say with a choke in his voice, “Oh, Joe. Joe! I’m so glad you’re here!”

While I doubt he’ll actually do that, the mental image makes me giggle because it’s so absurd.

So life in this small town? Well, it’s about to get really interesting or really boring.

Stay tuned for tales of angst and woe as we transition to redneck hippies.

Or something.

thinking of you

Thinking today of all my dear blog friends on the East Coast — Sheila, Cara, Jayne, Roo, Nightfly, Kate P. — and of everyone back East in harm’s way.

Please stay safe and know that the prayers of many people are with you.

one of many reasons why i love cara

Here’s the thing about my dear and soon-to-be-married blog friend, Cara Ellison: She’s razor sharp but soft and silly too. It’s so endearing.

People who need to be the smartest person in the room, even if it’s the bathroom, bore me big time. They’re relentless in their need to show you up. They never relax. Their impressive (and boring) data banks are always “ON.” Big whoop, you know? So you’re smart. We get it. Here’s a Groucho nose. Wear it, okay?

The thing about Cara is she probably is the smartest person in most any room but she doesn’t need to prove it. She can be so silly and, personally, I just love that about her. She will go there with any premise. I mean, we’ve spit-balled zombie novels together, discussed if yard gnomes are sexy, done an hours-long sexorcism on a poor sexually repressed reader (with Sheila O’Malley), and just last week, she and I went down a crazy conversational rabbit hole on Facebook about a nutso bridesmaid dress she posted.

This one, to be exact:

hello-kitty.jpg

The whole conversation devolved into swapping endless Gone with the Wind references. We both went mad with it and, frankly, I wanna go mad with it all over again!

Here’s the conversation:

Annette: OMG. LMAO!

Cara: I know, right?! What kind of horrible bitch would force her friends to wear this? Besides me, I mean. : )

Annette: Aside from you…no one I’d know, for long anyway. 😉

Cara: LOL! It’s just so hideous. I can’t imagine anyone thinking that this is the perfect dress! So awful.

Tracey: OMG. It’s Hello Scarlett.

Cara: Hahah! It is! Maybe a nice pink bonnet will really complete the ensemble?

Tracey: Rhett would NEVER approve.

Tracey: And she’d end up slapping him. It would be kind of awesome, actually. You could write a whole short story just from this dress. I DEMAND YOU DO IT.

Cara: I shall never be without my pink Hello Kitty dress again!

Cara: I might have to now. It is so miraculously inspiring. I must know exactly what the creator was thinking when she brought this lovely article of couture into being.

Tracey: After all, tomorrow is another day with Hello Kitty!

Cara: “This Hello Kitty dress tis the only thing worth fightin’ for and dyin’ for, Katie Scarlet O’Hara, because it is the only thing that lasts.”

Tracey: “He went out and shot dat po’ Hello Kitty dress, and, for a minute, I thought he was gonna shoot himself.”

Tracey: “The only thing I’m afraid of is they won’t hang you in time to pay the taxes on my Hello Kitty dress!”

Tracey: I have a problem. I can’t stop.

Cara: OMG you win the internet! Please don’t stop, I’m laughing so hard.

Tracey: I am now actually imagining what the taxes would be on a Hello Kitty dress. At LEAST 300 dollars!

Jessica: There is a certain … something … about it that screams “whiskey and Ambien” for the bridesmaids lucky enough to wear it.

Cara: It has to be that much. Especially with all the sparklies.

Cara: GWTW is my favourite book and I’m suddenly drawing a blank on it – you’ve totally owned this meme.

Tracey: And now I’m imagining Scarlett showing up to that Yankee prison wearing this Hello Kitty dress and begging Rhett for the tax money. I seriously have a problem.

Tracey: It’s one of my favorite too. 😉

Cara: Jessica, I love that imagery!

Jessica: Well now I have a deranged Fushia O’Hara prancing around in my head thanks to you!

Cara: Tracey, oh yes, instead of the drapery dress, this would have been much more effective. Yet I do wonder if Scarlett was wearing it when the old foreman with his new wife (the loose woman) came to Tara if things might have gone better for her. She’d rip off a ruffle, fling it in his face, and say, “That’s all of my Hello Kitty dress you’ll ever see!”

Tracey: Hahahahahaha.

Cara: Careen: “I guess a things like a lady’s Hello Kitty dress isn’t important anymore…”

Cara: Sue Ellen: “She stole my Hello Kitty dress! It was mine, I was going to marry it, and she stole it from me!”

Tracey: HAHAHAHAHA! “What’s my little lamb gwoine wear?” Scarlett points to Hello Kitty dress. “Oh, no, you ain’t!!”

Cara: LOL! Omg, Yessss!!!!

Tracey: “What’s that rustling I hear, Mammy?” “Why, Mista Rhett, that’s jes the Hello Kitty dress you done got me.”

Cara: I was thinking about that one! You got it though. Damn, where is Sheila O’Malley? She needs to get in on this!

Tracey: Yes! We need our trio!

Cara: I love your mind, Miss Tracey. : )

Tracey: Ditto, my dear.

Cara: Why, if I tell my Hello Kitty dress that I love it, it won’t marry Melly!

Tracey: Hahahahaha!

Tracey: “I can’t go all my life waiting to catch you between Hello Kitty dresses.”

Tracey: I can’t stop giggling over how stupid this is. It’s out of my control.

Cara: OMG that last Rhett line is masterful! I know, it’s totally dumb but it is also awesome.

Tracey: I have now mentally replaced every fabulous Scarlett gown with this Hello Kitty dress. At the Wilkes’ barbeque — in Hello Kitty. Mourning at the Atlanta ball — in Hello Kitty. Going to Ashley’s party — in Hello Kitty.

Cara: Marrying Melly’s cousin (suddenly drawing a blank on his name), Hello Kitty dress.

Cara: Knitting with India and the other women: Hello Kitty dress.

Tracey: Charles Hamilton. Put HIM in a Hello Kitty dress.

Tracey: Opening scene of the book, on the porch with the twins … in a Hello Kitty dress.

Tracey: “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by the charm of her Hello Kitty dress as the Tarleton twins were.”

Cara: Good lord. You’re beyond awesome.

Tracey: Or beyond help …..

Cara: We have a long history of Internet awesomeness. (I believe she is referring to our above-mentioned sexorcism of ’09. We need to do another one.)

Tracey: That we do, my friend. That we do. 😉

so ……

I’ve been sorta/kinda back on Facebook for a couple of months and I now have a pending friend request on FB from my mother-in-law. I’ve just been letting it languish in the upper left-hand corner where it’s been the little red flag of menace now for several days. She’s out of town so I know I can let it sit there ……. for now.

This can’t be good.

Can it?

I will now be forced to post only about my family all the time until she unfriends me in disgust.

You see, she shuts down and virtually pouts at any mention of my family or my nephews/nieces and takes our childless state very personally. (Uhm, guess what? Not about you, peaches.)

My sister, who is not on FB, said the other day, “Facebook just seems like another place to get in trouble with people.”

I think she’s probably right.

Ugh.

blogging light

We’ve been out of town for my birthday and now a house guest.

Uhm, for longer than we thought. Weeeeee.

Don’t you love that family miscommunication?

Back in a bit. Unless I kill people. I don’t think they let you blog in prison.

beauty

You absolutely must go see the gorgeous fairy mobile roo has made. It’s magical.

We all need more beauty in our lives, right? Well, get a gander at the beauty she’s created. You’ll be glad you did.

She’s giving it to some friends with a new baby and, for the record, I shall now be stalking them. Just for the mobile. That’s all I want, people. Hand it over and we’ll have no problems.

basically adorable

Okay, something’s askew with my crankypants lately because I’ve watched this little clip, oh, about a dozen times now.

It takes about 30 seconds or so to really get going, but wait for it. It’s totally worth it. I mean, even my 20-year-old nephew thought this was cute. I don’t know who’s cuter — the baby or the mom. Her reaction is priceless.