First of all, thanks tons for taking the time to read the last, really lonnnng post and for sharing your stories via comments and email. I was touched and still am by the support and kindness from all of you. So, thanks.

I went to a reunion over the weekend for my dad's mom's side of the family. It's always in this little town where I first lived, population still around 100, I think. To borrow a line from Tim McGraw, it's a "map dot ... a stop sign on the blacktop". It could easily describe this little town (and of course, the next verse is "and I caught the first bus that I could hop from there" - and I did, but I digress):



After the usual kick-ass buffet at the Church Hall, we busted tradition this time and took a drive south of town to see some 'important sites' in our family history.

Man, who knew??

Here's a shot of the one-room schoolhouse my grandmother (now in her mid-80's) taught at:



It sits up on a hill, on a piece of property that friend's own. I have memories of driving past the schoolhouse, but never being able to go inside. This time, we got to. Probably the highlight of the tour for me.

A picture of my grandmother on the steps of this schoolhouse:



My Great Uncle, now 90, came into the schoolhouse with us and told us about having gone to school there, how the desks were set up, memories of coming to school from their homestead a few miles away in bad weather, etc. For many years after they'd stopped using the school, it had been used to store silo. The interior is wrecked, but the blackboard (probably just slate) is still attached:



On Sunday, we went to a concert. And the story in and of itself about the concert is crazy. Just silly. But the end result out of a total waste of money and a day in the hot fucking sun (and numerous applications of sunscreen, by the way), was this:



I'm nursing that this week and staying inside like a good white girl. Or pink, depending.

Labels: family reunion, memories, pictures, sunburn

I think around, oh, Tuesday, this nasty ass storm rolled into town. I looked out my bedroom window and saw this:

Fuck.

That.

Noise.

Now, I hate tornadoes. And I'm certainly not fond of any CLOUD that looks like it might spit one out (and these certainly qualified). It also brought on tons of green skies (ie: hail) and really made a mess of downtown. At our house, we had tons of rain, smaller sized hail, and me hunkered down, waiting to get carried to Oz.

My son got his 'big boy' bed this week. It's been on order for the last month, and boy, has it been a month. He's been climbing out of the crib, wandering down the hall to announce various things to us - anywhere from twice to eleven times. I'm not counting or anything. After getting his 'big boy' bed, he's been hanging out in there, not wandering down the hall, and generally making my life a lot easier.

Here's the Bug, in his cowboy hat, helping Daddy take apart the crib (and really, if you're going to do any kind of home repair, you need a cowboy hat on tight):

I went to a co-ed sex toy party. And at the party, we had to eat a cherry that had been soaking for three weeks in Everclear, after it was lit on fire for a bit. It tasted like the Debbil.

And a gratuitous shot of me before going out to the party:
And finally, I spent yesterday with my Uncle at the hospital. He is on twelve liters of oxygen, and according to my husband, one step up from that is pretty much back on a vent again. He's in good spirits. When he'd left by ambulance, he'd grabbed his cell phone but didn't get the charger. I was able to find him a charger, some magazines and snuck in some jellybeans for him. And thanks everyone for their good wishes ...

Labels: pictures, week in review