It’s beginning to look a lot like home.

The lighting is bad, because I took these at night. . .but the desire to do so hit me, so I went with it. Our walls are still frightfully barren, but things are starting to shape up. As you will see from the captions, this was a “group” effort. Even if some of the ladies don’t know they were part of the group.

The first thing you see when you walk into my house. . .along with a pile of shoes by the front door. Floral arrangement courtesy of my sister. Table was my Granny's.

Plaque that is on the table in the entryway. . .it was supposed to go by the doorbell, but I plunked it on a photo stand, and we like it here.

My Granny's drop-leaf table. One day the photo tree from my Momma will have black and white family photos in it. Doily is Italian lace from my friend Carolyn.

This is standing at the fireplace looking back toward the entry and dining room. I conveniently cropped the pile of clean clothes that need to be folded OUT of the shot.

My friend Jennifer helped me with my mantle wall. . .lots of trial and error, but I like it. And more importantly, so does Tony.

My favorite side. . .I\'m normally not a colored candle kind of gal, but this one was just right. It\'s sitting atop a little grapevine wreath. Vase + eucalyptus = $20 @ WalMart.

Top of the entertainment armoire. This was the hard part.

Yes, there are tags dangling from the photo stands and a sticker on the hurricane globe. Long, long story that ended in the breaking of glass. Raided the study for “books to match” my color scheme, cast iron birdhouse from Tuesday Morning, photo of the kids I gave Tony for Father’s Day when Thad was 2.

Dining Room, The cabinet you can see totally see was my Granny's.

Coming into the dining room from the entryway. This china cabinet is the one I got at the flea market.

Crystal dish was given to me by Mrs. Ladelle for my wedding, and the doily was given to my by my friend Carolyn.

Extra chairs for Granny's table. My cousin reupholstered them several years ago. My wall is looking a little purple in this one.

And there you have it. The craft room is also doing much better. . .but the lighting in there at night, while wonderful for reading, writing short notes, contemplation, and readying one’s self for bed, is ATROCIOUS for picture taking.

Y’all come see us!!!!

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Not so bad despite the fact that I was in it

So the first official week of school has come to a close. In fact, the first official Saturday after the first official week of school has very nearly come to a close. . .and we all survived–even thrived this week.

The kids LOVE–let me repeat L.O.V.E.–their new schools. No tears. No missing of Lamkin or their Cy-Fair friends in excess. Not even a little bit. Kudos to the Magnolia school district and their teachers and students. Thank you for making my children feel welcomed and loved.

Tony, too, had a good week. One day he sent me the following e-mail: “My kids are doing interview questions with each other right now, and I can actually hear myself think. I’m considering asking them to be a little louder. And they are even discussing the questions that they are supposed to be discussing. . .” Obviously, this has not been the case for the past 14 years of his teaching experience. He was in shock.

My kiddos, too, are very nice. . .everything going well. . .some of the “good” behavior wore off a little by 7th period on Friday, and I had to put my school teacher face on, but they settled down quickly, and it’s going to be a good year.

Of course, there were some glitches along the way. Victoria forgot her homework one day. . .and it was for the teacher that had been a little stern with another student the day before. A lunch kit was left on the shuttle bus on the second day of school, so that’s gone. And Thursday morning on my way out of the house, I fell AGAIN. I was not in a rush. I was not being careless. I simply stepped on a loose rock, and down I went. Well, actually, it probably looked like a very humorous slap-stick routine. I kind of wish someone had been secretly video taping it just so I could have watched it later on.

I was walking with purpose toward the car at 6:38 a.m., and very proud of my early departure, when wham, bam, blam. . .the ground moved and I began evasive maneuvers to avoid landing on anything but my feet. I was unsuccessful. After making enough scuffling, falling noises to wake the neighborhood, I landed on my left side near a huge tree that we cut down last summer. My feet were in the air, and I knew there would be a price to pay. Luckily, it was just the price of some pride. I wiggled my already injured ankle–which has been healing nicely–to make sure it was not reinjured. It barked a couple of times but was otherwise okay. I sat up and looked around. Nothing was spinning, so I got to my feet. I saw one shoe where I had left it on the driveway, but the other was nowhere in sight. It did not help that it was 6:40 a.m. and still a bit dark out. I finally located it 5 feet from where I’d fallen (an open-backed sandal, so it became a free agent as soon as the momentum hit) cowering under a particularly large milk weed bush. Next item on the agenda was finding my keys that had been in my hand. My bags were on the ground, but my keys were nowhere to be found. Again–dark out–I finally saw them winking at me from under a clump of yaupon in the opposite direction of my errant shoe. It was more like I exploded to the ground rather than merely falling.

After finding all of my belongings, I decided to take a look at my pants. There was a smudge on the knee, but nothing worth taking even MORE time to go back into the house over. I took a deep breath, climbed into my car, and headed out. It was 6:45.

I got three miles from the house, and discovered that I had forgotten my lunch. At this point, my head start was gone, so I turned around and went back to get it–thus adding 6 miles coming and going to my trip. I went into the house, turned on the light, located my lunch, and just happened to look down at my pants. The foyer brightness showed more than the dim light of dawn regarding the state of my pants. The entire left side of my cropped khakis was covered in what appeared to be the left-over results of a very cranky baby feeding himself creamed spinach with dismal results. I have not had to scrub grass stains off my children’s clothes in several years–much less my own–but I did that night.

So, I changed pants, then walked VERY SLOWLY back to my car and tried to leave AGAIN. It was 6:58 a.m. I was already late for school–so I stopped at Sonic and got a large Diet Coke. On the way there, new abrasions kept presenting themselves like bread crumbs–a pants burn on my knee, a gouge on my big toe, a broken toe nail, jabs in several fingers from the yaupon bush I flattened. . .you get the idea.
I had to laugh.

We’re back in the swing of things. . .

Perfect

Sometime last year, through another blogger’s suggestion, I began reading The Nie Nie Dialogues. In short, it was the cute blog of a young mother–four babies–handsome husband–beautiful life. You can go there to find and read the details of how in the course of a few short seconds one afternoon a year ago, their lives were changed forever. They were in a plane crash, lost a very dear friend, Stephanie was burned over about 80% of her body, and her husband over 30% of his. She spent the next five month in a coma while one sister cared for the three older children, and her youngest baby was cared for by another.

Until yesterday, she had not posted a photo of how she looks. There had been random shots of her hands in their tight gloves, of the clear mask she must wear while she sleeps, of bottles and bottles and bottles of pain medication, of her beautiful, green eyes. I had only seen these photos–the ones of a natural beauty who glowed with confidence in herself and her life and the people who love her.

Sometime over the weekend, she posted this one. That is her husband holding her. . .the green eyes are the same, the glow of confidence is still there, but it’s stronger.

Today, I return to a job I wish were different after having gained five pounds over the summer to add to the 35 I’ve already gained in the past five years. As I drive away from my husband and children and go back out into a very imperfect world after sequestering myself in my home for the past 9 weeks, I will remember that I did not fall out of the sky. I did not miss five months of my children’s lives. I did not hear my baby call someone else Mommy. I did not very nearly leave them motherless and my husband without the comfort of a wife for five months while he also struggled to survive. When I look in the mirror, I recognize the face there. When I want to walk, I do not have to will my legs to do so. When I write, I do not have to force my fingers to do my bidding.

I am not perfect. But my Father is perfect, and He has blessed me. And I know that Stephanie would say the same thing.

Listyness

1. My nose is only marginally stopped up. Hallelujah!!!!

2. My ankle is only marginally swollen. Hallelujah!!!

3. I am friends with the Goddess of How to Teach Dyslexia class, and she allowed my germy self into her home today–AND fed me lunch–AND gave me A BOATLOAD of stuff to use in my class and told me how to use it all. Can I get an AMEN????

4. I found some awesome red vase type items for my mantle for CHEAP each, and some mixed color eucalyptus for CHEAP and they passed Tony’s inspection. WHEW!!!!

5. I am going to try to get my classroom put together tomorrow at BREAK NECK SPEED. It’s sort of the same room that I had two years ago, just one door down, so it should be easy. (Hope I didn’t just jinx the entire thing.)

6. I had an incredibly unhealthy meal of fishsticks and french fries for supper, but it was EXACTLY what I wanted. So there. Sometimes, we just have to take a walk–or cook–on the dark side.

7. My mother is coming to take care of the kids next week while we are in inservice–well Tony already is but I’m not–so I get to see her SOON!!!

8. My teammates from two years ago already had lesson plans for the first six weeks laid out for my non-dyslexia classes, so at our meeting today, all I had to do was nod a lot and say “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Is that what we did before? Good.” THANK YOU MICHELE AND MELINDA!!!!

Totally worth the next 7 minutes

My friend Sarah had this on her blog today. Rather than just link to her, I decided to put it here for you. You need to watch this if you’ve not seen it.

Praise Update on Rita

The test results for Rita have come back and been read. She does NOT have a tumor at all. She DOES have a torn retina and some blindness caused by it. Normally that would just sound awful. . .and it is. . .but it’s so much better than a brain tumor that a lot of perspective has come with the diagnosis. Thank you for prayers for her, and please continue to pray as the doctors investigate how to go about fixing the tear and hopefully helping her to regain the eyesight that she has lost in that eye.

Good vs. Evil: A study

Artwork courtesy of Thad.

The Bad Guy

The Policeman

********Had to change the caption from “The Policeman” to “The Cop” per the Artist’s request.********

The Super Hero

Is it just me, or does the Super Hero look a little like Voldemort? Thad has never SEEN that particular Harry Potter movie, so he has no point of reference, but if I were the Bad Guy, I’d run VERY, VERY fast indeed.