Monday, February 23, 2009

Thirty-seven years ago...........


Thirty-seven years ago, this little person entered my life and I became an "Aunt" at age twelve. I had not been around many babies prior to this, save my bratty little brother, the "Bullard Boy King", "Favored SON" "Family Heir"!!!
Sorry David, I had to throw that in as I am "the middle-child-mal-content" and a "second-daughter" at that!

I was pretty quickly enamored with this little girl, which is saying a lot as I was deep in the throes of Female Pre-Puberty Hormonal Bipolar Disorder. (otherwise known as generally "witchy" and a royal pain in the hiney). I was pretty much concerned with only myself 99.99% of the time, devoting the other .01% to tormenting my little brother. I had always been a big tomboy growing up and spent quite a bit of time lamenting the fact that I was missing out on all the privileges that only being male brought-you know, they can go to the bathroom out in the woods SO much easier, can go without shirts in the summer, etc. Plus, I had to wear stupid DRESSES and hide my pocket-knife in my purse for church on Sunday. Oh yeah....and I was VERY skinny, (not slim) wore glasses that looked like the bottom of coke bottles, and was generally kind of "homely", to put it nicely.

But something changed in my heart, mind and ovaries when I laid eyes on this beautiful baby girl......I had found something that was more fun than climbing trees, building tree houses, and threatening my brother with my pocket knife. I never knew a little girl could talk SO much and impart such wisdom and sometimes painfully truthful honest observations of the world around her. My favorite nick-name for her was "Mouth of the South", which she lovingly thought was a compliment. You could get her to do ANYTHING for the promise of a Slush-Puppy...well, at least until she actually GOT the darned Slush-Puppy.

We kind of spent a few years growing up together. Most of my paychecks from my first job...big-time cashier at TG&Y were spent on clothes and toys for her. She insisted on sitting in the living room with my first boyfriend and I while we were "courting". For every kiss I received, she had to receive an equal (well, maybe not quite equal in intensity and slobber) kiss. She accompanied me on many dates and was a pretty good chaperone....she told on me for everything and probably kept me out of a bit of trouble.

I did get to experience a brief period of "pay-back" when my oldest son was small. Traci would pick him up and drop him off at the Elementary School on her way to the High School. Since I had trained him well regarding the virtue of TRUTH, he reported faithfully to me when Traci had a minor car accident (which she might have otherwise been able to "let slide") or received traffic tickets from the Htown police!

A bit of funny trivia for any of you who know Traci now.....she was a BIG Alabama Football Fan for a number of years!!! And it is a bit funny that her undergrad degree is NOT from Auburn, but she and David both received their Graduate degrees from "Boo-Bama" (as Connor and Ellla refer to Alabama) I don't think she is any the worse for it though!

Thank you Traci, for being the one that helped me see that being a female is a blessing from God above. (well, except for when we had "company" once a month) I am sorry that you inherited the "Drama-Gene" from me. And I am sorry that poor, sweet, gentle, kind David has had to introduce this into his bloodline! But thank you SO much for having growing up as my "baby" and my friend. Also thanks for birthing Ella B so that between me, you, my girls and Paige, just when I think I've seen it all............Ella B pulls another one!
 
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Oh Yeah....the wagon-wheel picture was taken just before she loaded up in the covered wagon for the move west to Montana! And she came back with a pretty good husband to boot...even if they gave up homesteading and came back to Alabama in a Isuzu Trooper with a baby (not banjo) on her knee!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRACI!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

More "Blog Anxiety"....


A.B.A.D.--- Affective Blog Anxiety Disorder ...I am beginning to wonder if this may become the newest anxiety disorder. Well, our family has certainly done more than it's share to contribute to the financial well-being of the Family Counselors/Psychiatric Therapists community, so why not here in the blogging arena? It makes me feel kind of cool to have this new, hip disorder. I feel a bit more saavy with this more 21st century disorder rather than the old standbys like PTSD, OCD or even the common everyday agoraphobia. A.B.A.D. is way more cool.


So what am I anxious about? I just realized that February is almost half-way over and I'll have to change this blog background. I have no idea how to begin. I will probably somehow end up accidentally deleting all my past entries. If so, I guess I will just have a cute new "themey" blog each month. So, three guesses what next month will be.........LEPRECHAUNS/CLOVERS/St.PATRICKS DAY or should I go with the traditional March winds KITES theme. Or maybe an "ANTIQUES" look since I will celebrate being one half of a century old..........off to put on some of that "botox-in-a-bottle" face cream.




What happens at our house when I get my camera out....

OK....well I suffered from an extreme case of "blog-anxiety" for two or three days after setting up this blog. Trying to come up with something "cute" or "catchy" was my first angst. Followed quickly by a certain fear that is easily recognized by anyone who is the parent to more than one child-making sure I posted about each child an equal number of times. After riding this anxiety wave out for a day or so, I pretty much did what I think most everyone else does.....just got busy and didn't have time to worry about this blog.

Many of you know (the two or three people/family members who know about this site) that I have been "dabbling" with photography and Photoshop. "Dabbling" would be a good description. For the most part, I just take about 1000 photographs at family events and/or of Clara and Tom performing activities of daily living while watching from my post on the left corner of our couch. Ususally in those 1000 or so photos, I might luck up on four to five decent shots. Most of the pictures I take look like this...........















Or this......








Which quickly progresses downhill to this.....










These would be me trying to give myself a "home face-lift" so I don't have so much CHIN and NECK for the pictures.





Tomorrow......I will post a few of the "nice" ones I got!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Well, I'll be darn-tootin'-She was RIGHT! and even about those little tool-symbols ---"duh Mom, they mean edit"

Since we have nothing exciting in our lives to buh-log about, I'll follow the general blogging trend and post some pictures of my lovely and perfect children doing nothing very spectacular except being cute. Or handsome...(sorry Mason)















First Post

Well, I was trying to figure out this "blog-thing" so I cheated/copied and went to one of those "fill-in-the-blank-blog-makers". So after about 64 and 1/2 hours of following the easy instructions, I had a blog background......YEAH ME! The only problem was it had some "stuff" on it.....some little thingies that looked like screwdrivers and wrenches and something about posts or edit or something like that.....I can't remember exactly because that was almost 65 hours ago. Anyway, I was just SO excited that we had our own "FAMILY BLOG BACKGROUND" that really looked good I decided to show it to Clara. I told her that I wasn't sure how to get rid of those thingies, but I really liked our "FAMILY BLOG BACKGROUND" so much that I might just leave it like it was and go look at it every-s0-often. Then I could pretend we had a blog, feel good about it, not put alot of work into it and not develop "blog paranoia" about what other people thought about my blog- assuming someone would actually read our blog. She took one look and immediately said "Mom, you need to make a post to get rid of that stuff. And the tool thingies mean edit" Since most ten-year old children know more about computers/texting/cell phones/blogging......etc. than us old-timers, I am giving her the benefit of the doubt. And also the honor of the FIRST post!!!!! .
Congratulations Clara! Now let us go VIEW the blog and see if you are correct!