It's Always Sunny In Atlanta

Except for yesterday, and the day before, and then the day before that...

Today's forecast: clear skies, 45º, Neve's friend, Hannah, comes over to play, a trip to the country, and lots and lots of smiles.  (Thank you, Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Nat, for letting us stop by your house today while you were at work.  We remembered not to feed the horses too much, we brushed their manes [once again compared to Mommy's "almost-as-pretty" hair], and we swung on the best tree swing in the world!)

In Casablanca's Dreams

One of our favorite day trip cities is Chattanooga, TN.  I discovered it years ago, spending a weekend with a college friend in her hometown.  It captures all the beauty and history that Atlanta lacks (thanks again, Sherman) while having a recreational feel to it.  It's both attractive and fun.

Chattanooga is the kind of city that I really want Atlanta to be (with a mountain and a river and everything), but it lacks the most important thing- a job for my husband.

Maybe it's for the best.  After all, if we lived there it would take all the magic away from weekends we spend creepily peering through the windows of our dilapidated dream house.

The slate roof!  The root cellar!  The view!  The stone walls and old oaks and magnolias!  The lampposts!   The enormous eagle monument hovering over the yard!  (Ok, so that's a little weird.)

By the way, these are only the views from the back.  The front is stunning.  It sits so close to a drop off on the edge of Lookout Mountain, however, I was getting vertigo trying to take a decent snapshot.

Next door to this old home (which we're yet to know specific historical details about) is a Civil War monument marking the very place that a significant battle took place (The Battle of Lookout Mtn.) that would later prove to be a crossroads in Sherman's fiery march through Atlanta.

While I sound very knowledgeable and text-booky, I only know this because Terry has drug me to this site many times on his tours of Civil War sites through the south.  We later discovered this house, and we both agreed that we need it.  That's right.  NEED.  Unfortunately, the state of Tennessee also wants it.  And owns it.  And truthfully, if the state of Tennessee can't afford to renovate this beauty, the White's probably couldn't either.

Maybe if Terry becomes the Mayor of Lookout Mountain...

The Gift That Keeps On Giving... I Hope

Smacksy once wrote something about her grandmother (here) that stuck with me.  Aside from the awesome photo and delightful story about her, I thought the idea alone was great:

Give grandparent(s) an empty journal, and write a question (relating to their life) on every other page.  Have them fill it out at their leisure, and enjoy reading their answers later.


And so, I bought my grandparents a [joint] journal, in which I gave both of them enough space to fill out their [separate] answers.  I thought long and hard about each question, one different in their curiosity from the next.  While one question was as simple as "What is your favorite song?", the next could be as weighty as "What is your favorite memory, and why?".  I found myself getting choked up at the possibility of what and who would find their way onto the pages of this book... well-thought answers, possible confessions, sincere sentiments that were too hard to speak in person.  I imagined what it will feel like when I am in my 40's when I'm reading the journal with my children and thinking about my grandparents as a memory.  This, of course, made me feel a sense of incredible thankfulness that I still have them around now, and it renewed my appreciation of these two wonderful people who happen to live only 40 miles away from me.  Suddenly I was eager to sit next to them at the Christmas table the following day, and I vowed to never take these days with them for granted again.

When the extended family gathered around my parents' living room to open their presents on Christmas day, I had hoped to take a moment to pull my grandparents to the side.  In the confusion of flying paper and "thank you!'s", I wanted to calmly and quietly explain the meaning behind the almost-empty-book they were about to open.

Before I could make my way across the room however, my grandmother's fingers had already ripped the wrap off and flipped through the first few pages of the journal.  And then...

I watched her fling it over her shoulder... much like a child who'd just received a pair of socks.

In the hopes that my explanation would change her feelings toward the gift, she cut me off with, "I know what it is, and I don't like gifts that make me work."

∞

I suppose the gift was more for me than for them.  But don't think I didn't remind her that I also bought her a pair of earrings.  Ahem.  At least Grandpa promised to fill out as much as "he could remembuh."

Sunshine Grandpa, Christmas 2009:

p.s.  Lisa, I think my grandfather in the first photo looks a little like your Jeff.  ???

Happy New Year

Dinner at a friend's house, 11th hour run to the drugstore to pick up prescriptions before the new 2010 deductible kicks in, crash a child-free party (with our children), home, 3 Stooges marathon on AMC, fall asleep on the pull-out sofa with the kids at 11:45.

That was how we rang in our new year.  And it was awesome.  Beautiful.  Perfect.  Sober and yet so unbelievably giggly.

Of all the fun that was had, I think the girls enjoyed this the most:

Our children discovered the timeless hilarity of slapstick.  It was quite a hit.  And let me tell you how satisfying it was to watch their little confused faces look to us for permission to laugh at, say, Moe kicking Curly in the rear end.  I'd nod, and there was a moment of what I thought was an understanding that this was a different kind of violence... a fake violence... a pre-political-correctness-historical kind of violence that we could overlook because, well... IT'S SO FUNNY!?

We were all having a good laugh until this morning...

A little game of "Tie You Up In The Woods With The Coyotes", anyone?  Seriously.  That was Neve kept saying as she was slowly slowly slowly trying to manipulate her nonthreatening vienna sausage fingers to tie a knot in the tights, I mean the mouth gag.  (FYI- don't ever google "mouth gag" or "mouth muffle", as there weren't as many pictures of Olive Oil tied to the train tracks as there was pictures of certain adult games I was unaware the rest of the world was playing.)

Also, coyotes?  When did Neve ever even hear about a coyote?  And why was she leaving her sister in the imaginary woods to be eaten by them? 

And it doesn't stop there.  In the car today, our sweet extremely patient dog, Banjo, began to howl in the backseat when Terry hopped out of the car to pump gas, like hounds do.  Neve did not like this at all, and proceeded to yank his floppy ear and said, "If you keep doing this, I'll cut your ear off with scissors!"

Me:  "Neve!  Terry!?  Did you hear what she said?!"

Terry:  "No, what?"

(pause)

Terry:  "Neve!  That's awful!"

Neve:  "But those men on tv did it.  And it was funny!"

(adult heads in hands)

Happy New Year, Beautiful Friends!  I hope that this year brings you loads of smiles and laughs, even when you're left in the woods to be eaten by the coyotes.