Thanksgiving

So after I posted earlier today, I started flipping thru writing prompts on Pinterest. There are so many! I found one I like while waiting for the dentist to call me in. By the time my drilling and filling was done, I had worked out most of the story. I rushed home to write it out and here it is!  The prompt was a 'first line prompt' which means it has to be the first line of the story. It was "The house shouldn't be this empty." Read on and leave me a comment letting me know what you think!

“The house shouldn’t be this empty” I thought as I walked down the hall to the bedrooms.  Where was everyone?  It’s Thanksgiving and all the family should be here.  The house should be bustling with activity: cooking and table setting and kids running and playing.  
When I pulled up to my grandma’s house, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  The circle drive was packed with cars.  Sleds were thrown haphazardly on the ground near the front door.  Obviously, my cousins had all been sledding earlier in the day.  It couldn’t have been a great sledding excursion though.  The sleds were in terrible condition.  They were dirty, dented, some had cracks. “Time to get the kids new sleds, guys” I thought to myself.  I knocked on the door, but that was just a formality.  Family was always welcome at Grandma’s and she always said to just come on in.  So, I did.  I pulled the door open and it creaked on its hinges.  I made a mental note to find a can of WD-40 later.  I called out “Hey guys!  I finally made it!”  I hung my coat on a hanger and crammed it into the over-stuffed closet.  Twenty people’s worth of winter gear made the closet door nearly impossible to close. “The roads were pretty snowy, and icy in spots, but it wasn’t too bad.  I was only white-knuckling it a couple times,” I continued as I walked toward the kitchen.  It was quiet.  Quiet? I stopped.  On Thanksgiving?  I took a moment to listen.  It wasn’t just quiet.  The house was totally silent.  No yelling or laughing coming from the kids’ playroom.  No clanging of pots and pans in the kitchen.  There was no welcoming smell of turkey dinner in the oven.  In fact, the house smelled dusty and moldy, as if it had been closed up for years.  The hair on the back of my neck stood up.  What was going on?  I had spoken to Mom on the way here.  The expected noise of a big family gathering in the background had been clear on the phone. It had been so loud, we were having trouble understanding each other, and we had to cut our conversation short.  I was going to be here shortly anyway, we could talk then.  I stepped into the kitchen.  Nothing. No one was there.  Pots and pans were hanging from the rack, plates and cups were stacked in the cupboard.  The sink was empty.  I continued into the dining room.  The table was empty.  Grandma’s china sat in neat rows in the china hutch.  Everything was just as Grandma liked it: neat and orderly.  Except, there was a layer of dust on everything.  A thick layer, the kind that accumulates in an abandoned building over the course of twenty years.  What the hell?  My heart was pounding.  I felt like the victim in a horror movie, who hadn’t yet encountered the crazy masked murderer, but was about to. 
I continued through the house.  “Hello? Where are you guys?”  I called out as I walked up the stairs and down the hall to the bedrooms. Opening each bedroom door, I saw the family’s suitcases and bags thrown on the beds but, like the kitchen, everything was covered in dust and cobwebs.  I ran back down the steps and back to the front door.  I was starting to panic.  Something was very wrong.  Outside, I saw things that I hadn’t noticed when I first arrived.  Subtle differences that hadn’t caught my attention the first time.  Sure, the circle drive was packed with cars, but the tires were all flat and there was rust creeping into the paint jobs.  Grandma’s beloved garden had the leftovers of that summer’s flowers, but also the frozen shells of weeds that were moving in and taking over, as if the garden had been neglected for some time.  I looked around the side of the house and saw the swing set was in the yard, right where it should be, but the swing was hanging from just one chain.  The other had rusted and broken, and now lay in a heap in the frosty ground. 
I ran back to my car, jumped in and locked the door behind me.  The panic finally won, I couldn’t fight it anymore, and I started sobbing uncontrollably.  What had happened?  Where was my family? And why does it look like it’s been ages since they’ve been here?  Crazy ideas started flitting through my head.  Time traveling?  Bad joke?  Ha, really bad joke.  If this was someone’s idea of a prank, I was going to disown them.  Bad dream?  I latched on to that one.  It had to be it.  I was dreaming.  I wiped the tears from my face and took a deep breath to calm myself.  “Get yourself together Rebekka, it’s just a dream.  You’re in your apartment, in your warm cozy bed, dreaming.  Now you know you’re dreaming, you can wake yourself up, right?“ There had to be a way.  I pulled my sleeve up and pinched my arm, hard. *beep* What the hell was that? *beep* I looked around trying to find the source of the high-pitched noise.  *beep* My car was off and the key was out.  *beep* No power going to any of the car’s electronics. *beep* I lifted my butt off the seat and took my cell phone out of my back pocket.  *beep* There were no notifications. *beep* I sat still for a moment, listening. *beep* I needed to figure out the direction the beeping was coming from. *beep* I turned my head this way and that way. *beep* Direction didn’t seem to matter; the beeping was very close to me. *beep* Very close, like it was coming FROM be! *beep* What the hell?  *beep* I opened the car door and stepped out. *beep* It followed me out. *beep* I took a few steps away from the car, onto the grass of the front yard. *beep* It was…..in my head.  Beeping in my head?! Great. 
I tried to ignore the incessant beeping as I looked around some more.  It had been a couple years since I had made to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving dinner.  It looked exactly how I remembered it.  “Of course, it does dummy.  This is your dream, remember?”  I laughed at the conversation I was having with myself, feeling just one step shy of a loony bin. 
“Rebekka?”
I had barely heard it; the voice was so soft.  Who said it?  I turned slowly, on the spot, trying to figure out where the voice had come from. 
“Rebekka!?”
It was slightly louder this time, kind of far off and echo-y.  It was like someone had lost me and was searching for me.  My heart raced as I tried to tell which direction the voice was coming from.  As my heartbeat increased, so did the speed of the beeping in my head.  It punctuated every heart beat like those monitors you see in TV hospitals.
“Rebekka, can you hear me?”
The voice was loud and clear this time.  It was my mother’s voice.  But where was she? I started running. “Mom?!”  I didn’t know where I was running to, but I had to find her. Somehow, I knew she was the answer to waking from this dream.  This nightmare. “Mom!”
“Rebekka!  She mumbled something, but I couldn’t understand it”
“Mom!  Can you hear me?  Mom!” I was running without paying any attention to where I was going.  I passed tree after tree.  Some branches whipped my face as I flew by them but I didn’t stop.  “Mom!!”  By the time I saw the edge of the cliff, it was too late to stop, but I tried.  The ground was slick with frost and I slid right over the edge. 
I tried to catch myself from the fall.  But I wasn’t falling.  I was in a bed.  My hands were clutching the sheets.  The beeping matched the frantic beating of my heart, but it was no longer in my head.  I opened my eyes to bright lights above me.  My mom was standing next to me, smiling and crying at the same time. A searing pain shot through my temple and I closed my eyes again.  I was so confused.  The short glimpse I saw looked like a hospital room.  “What happened?” I asked, but it was mumbly and came out sounding like “wh-hapn?”
Mom took my hand.  “You were in an accident.  Do you remember anything?  You were on your way to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving dinner.  The weather was nasty.  Snowy and icy.  You called to tell me you were about a half hour away.  Do you remember any of this?”  I nodded slightly.  The dream was merging with bits of real memory. The phone call, it had been too loud there at Grandma’s, we couldn’t hear each other very well.  “At a particularly icy spot, another car lost control and hit your car.  Your car flipped over, you hit your head really hard.  You’ve been unconscious ever since. You’ve got a couple broken bones.  We’ve been so worried.”
“How long?” I asked (it came out much clearer than the first time I spoke). 
“You’ve been out for about a week.  For a day or so, the doctors weren’t sure you were going to pull through.  I’ve been talking to you the whole time.  It wasn’t until yesterday that you started mumbling a little, and your legs were kind of twitching this morning.”  My dream! The beeping had been the heart monitor here in the hospital!  And my legs twitching, that must have been when I was running. It had only seemed like maybe twenty minutes.  It had been days?! 

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo.....National Novel Writing Month. It's a yearly challenge where writers of all ages, all over the country, collectively sit down at their laptops and start putting words to paper. New stories, stories that have been started but never finished, ideas that have been bouncing around inside their heads for years.....The goal is to write 50,000 words by he end of November. That works out to be about1667 words per day.  Doesn't seem like a lot at first. Sometime you just hit the ground running with a great idea and 1667 words just seem to come pouring out. I wrote for a whopping 5 days. My total word count? 3000. The story has a great start. An ok secondary storyline. The two storylines intermingle a bit here and there and then converge toward the end. Sounds great. But I have this timeline in my head. Like, the amount of time over which this story should take place. And I have a 2 week gap right smack in the middle that I don't know what to do with. No clue. Totally idea-less. So here it sit, now the 15th of November, with my head figuratively up against a brick wall.  I haven't added a single word to my count in about 10 days.  And yet, here I am typing away on my blog with hardly any effort at all. So, does writing about my writing here on my blog count towards word count? I have a journal where I type up ideas about the storyline. Do those words count? Because technically I AM working on the story.  I have almost twice as many words in that journal as I do in the actual story. 
I had another idea though. I'm pretty good at writing little short stories from writing prompts I find online. What if I find a new writing prompt every day and just write a 1667 word short story? I honestly think that would be easier for me than trying to push a story through a 2 week timeframe that, right now, it obviously does not want to go thru. Yes, I'm speaking about the story as if it makes decisions and speaks for itself - because it does. Any writer will tell you that their stories start off as their own ideas, but tend to end up having a life of their own and sometimes can have twists and turns that the author never anticipated. What do you think? I'm going to give it a go, starting tonight. And I'll let you know how it goes.

Postcards from Russia

Postcards from Russia. Sounds like a movie right?  I googled it.  No movie.  There is a book, and some kind of orchestra music. Someone should make a movie called Postcards from Russia.  It could be about a couple people who start as pen pals when they're kids, and write to each other all their lives.  It would be an interesting movie.

But why am I talking about postcards from Russia?  Well actually, I'm more concerned with postcards to  Russia at this moment.  I'm sitting in my living room, addressing a Lake Michigan postcard to a stranger whom I have never met or heard of before.  Why?  Because I joined something. 

I am a member of the Hogwarts Running Club (HRC).  It's a group made up of geeky Harry Potter fans who also happen to like walking and running.  And we use our walking and running mileage to make donations to charities via an app called Charity Miles.  Check it out, it's pretty cool.  And the group is a really great group of very supportive people that's really more like a really big family. 

What's it got to do with postcards?  Well, nothing really.  But the group admin posts a profile of a member once a week or so, highlighting the person's history with running and the HRC as well as other hobbies they enjoy.  This particular member has a hobby called postcrossing.  Huh?  What the heck is postcrossing, you ask? Yep, I asked the same thing,  Lucky for me, they provided a link: www.postcrossing.com so I checked it out. Simply put, you sign up, they give you the address of some other random person who signed up, and you send them a postcard.  By signing up, your address gets thrown in the hat too, so other people may be randomly assigned your address and send you a postcard.  There are people around the world doing this.  So you get real for real mail (that's NOT a bill!  Who wouldn't appreciate some bill-less mail?!), kind of meet people around the world, and get picture postcards from who knows where.  I thought it was cool, signed up, and immediately requested an address.  The address I was assigned?  Yep, you guessed it.  Russia. 

So here I am, sitting in my living room, addressing a Lake Michigan postcard to a stranger whom I have never met or heard of before.  And I hope, somewhere else in the world, someone is sitting down and addressing a postcard to me.

Seeing in Color

I found a writing prompt online that intrigued me. I tried to keep it short. This could easily go much longer with more details.  Let me know what you think:

I used to enjoy sunsets.  In fact, they were my favorite part of the day.  I loved watching the sun, a ball of blazing red- orange, sink into the horizon while the clouds shifted and swirled in various shades of pinks and purples and oranges.   When I close my eyes, I can almost see the colors in my mind.  Almost, but not quite.  Not anymore.  It’s been so long, I can’t quite remember them anymore. 

My soul mate died nearly twelve years ago, but I can remember the day we met like it was yesterday.  I had already stowed my carry-on bag in the overhead bins, as the flight attendants repeatedly told everyone, and was settling into my window seat.  A woman with nearly black hair in a white shirt and long loose white skirt with big gray flowers printed on it slid down into the aisle seat next to me.  “I can’t wait to relax on the beach and soak up the sun, I’m so tired of winter,” she said to me with a smile.  I intended to politely respond.  I really did.  But when I looked up to answer, her eyes caught me off guard.  They were a bright, piercing…….color.  What was the name of that color?  I had never seen it before.  Hadn’t seen ANY color before actually.  I just stared. 

“Something wrong?” she asked, her smile faltering.   

I stammered “Your….it’s just…..I’ve never believed the stories but, your eyes.  They aren’t….gray.”

She knew which stories I meant.  Everyone heard them when we were little: everyone on earth has a soul mate and when you meet your soul mate, you gain the ability to see in color. Until then, you merely see black, white and grays.  Some people believe in the tales so whole-heartedly that they spend their lives searching for their soul mate.  Some even claim to have found them and try to convince others by describing things they could suddenly see.  But most people brush off the stories as just that: stories.   My parents were non-believers.  So I was raised in the mindset that soul mates don’t exist and color was a fairy tale.  And yet, here I was, staring into the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen and they were most definitely color.  

Over time, as we got to know each other, and grew closer, I saw more and more colors.  I found a book that listed colors and their names and we learned them together.  So many different shades of green in the trees, lemon yellow, purple flowers.  Neither of us ever really knew how beautiful the world was before, when we only saw shades of gray.  My favorite color was the blue of her eyes.  We spent 5 years exploring and rediscovering the world we thought we had known.  

Then it all changed.  She was in a car accident.  An ambulance rushed her to the hospital.  When I arrived, they were still working on her.  She had lost so much blood.  As I watched, the blood faded from red to a dark, shiny gray, and I knew.  They hadn’t given up yet, but I knew she was gone.  I looked around me and saw that everything was again just black, white, and shades of gray.  And I cried. 

I go to her grave every year on her birthday.  I bring her a bouquet of flowers.  She loved flowers.  They grew in all sorts of colors.  I’m never sure what color flowers I’ve brought.  I haven’t seen any color since she died.  Until today.  As I placed the bouquet on her headstone, I realized one tulip was pink.

Road Trip Days 9 and 10 - The Long Road Home

Well, that's all folks.  Our big adventure is over.  We spent all of Saturday and Sunday in the car, driving home. It's approximately a 16 hour drive from Vicksburg to Petoskey.  Ugh.  That's a lot of driving.  So we broke it up into two days.  Saturday we drove from Vicksburg to Mattoon, Illinois and Sunday we drove from Mattoon to home.  It was a fairly uneventful drive.  I do have a couple pictures for you.  We also made a list of all the states we either visited or passed through on this trip.  Michigan (of course), Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee (just barely).  8 states!  And we ended up crossing the Mississippi 10 times!  Well, Madison and I crossed 10 times, Carl crossed 8 times.  For an explanation of that, please check out Road Trip Day 2.  The most exciting thing that happened on the way home is when we passed by a cotton field being burned.  Apparently this is done to kill off boll weevils and prepare for the next planting of cotton.

Road Trip Day 8 - Vicksburg

Vicksburg appears to be such a cute little town.  As I said before, we stopped here for lunch on our way to New Orleans.  We ate in downtown Vicksburg which is an adorable, old-fashioned downtown with sidewalks covered by balconies and shops lining both side of the street.  When we came in to the town last night, we came via the interstate straight to our hotel, never passing through downtown.  I realized that someone who is only passing through, who doesn't take the time to look around a bit, would never even know that the quaint little downtown is even there.  And they'd be missing out!

Today was a day full of history.  We started bright and early with a guided tour of the Vicksburg National Military Park.  It turns out Vicksburg was the location of a pivotal battle in the Civil War.

 General John Pemberton was the confederate leader at the Vicksburg fort.  General Ulysses Grant attempted several attacks on the fort, and failed due to the rough terrain.  He finally decided that the only way to win was to lay siege.  What's that mean, you ask?  Well, it means that the Union army cut off all supply sources to the Confederates, and then just waited.  There was some fighting during most of the 43 day siege, but when Pemberton surrendered, it was due to the disease and starvation plaguing his fort.  Our guide was a bottomless well of information.  There were memorials for every of soldiers who were involved in this battle.  The cool thing is that this park was built while the Civil War veterans were still alive.  They came back and told the park "This is where my regiment was stationed" or "This is as far as we got during an attack before we had to retreat" and that was where the memorial was built.  Right there in what appear to be totally random locations.  The biggest thing I took away from this tour was this:  the front lines for the Confederate and Union armies were so close in places that the soldiers could and did talk to each other between skirmishes.  Some of them were friends, family, neighbors.  And when Pemberton and Grant agreed on the terms of surrender, one of the first things that happened was the Union soldiers sharing their food and supplies with the starving and sick Confederate soldiers.  I also learned

that there are several known woman-disguised-as-men serving in the Civil War - and probably many more unknown - as well as boys as young as 8 years old who served in, and were injured in, the Civil War.  We also got to walk around the USS Cairo, the last of the ironclad warships from the Civil War.  It was torpedoed and sunk in 1862 and raised 102 years later.  It sunk in 12 minutes.  No lives were lost but the crew didn't have time to pack up their belongings before abandoning ship.  The museum is full of the things they left behind.  The medicine bottles you see in one picture are exactly how they were left.  The cork kept the water out and the medicines in.

After our tour was done, we did a tour of our own around town at some of the historical homes that were built as far back as the 1820's.  We also walked through the Old Courthouse Museum and walked through the soda shop where Coca-Cola was first bottled - not BY Coca-Cola, but by the owner of the shop.  You see, Coca-Cola would just

send their syrup to the shop.  If you wanted a Coke, you had to go to the soda shop where they would mix the syrup with carbonated water in the soda fountain.  The owner realized that people who couldn't make it to his shop would probably enjoy some too, so he put it in some bottles and traveled around town with them.  And tada!  Bottled Coca-Cola was invented.  

We also found two other cemeteries to check out.  First we drove around the Anshe Chesed Cemetery which is an all-jewish cemetery.  Then over to Beulah Cemetery - which is an all-african-american cemetery. Unfortunately, this one is currently closed to the public so we couldn't explore.  But it looks like they're working on making it more accessible.  We also accidentally found what appeared to be an old hospital that was most definitely not in use anymore.  The whole building was fenced off, weeds were taking over the yard and driveway, and kudzu was covering parts of the building. We drove all the way around it and found a sign that said "Marian Hill" - according to the internet this is a rehab center, currently still in use.  But it sure doesn't look like it.  

We did find a bunch of "No Trespassing" signs though, so we didn't get too close. It was cool and creepy at the same time.  Got some pictures of it here.

Tomorrow we start the long trip back home.  It's about 16 hours from Vicksburg to Petoskey.  We're breaking up the drive with an overnight stay in Mattoon, IL.  Why Mattoon?  Well, it's about halfway, it's along our route, and Carl has fun saying the town name LOL  

Road Trip Day 7 - New Orleans to Vicksburg

Today was a travel day.  We drove from New Orleans to Vicksburg.  Thankfully, it was one of our shorter drives.....only about 5 hours.  Before we even got out of New Orleans, we saw that a cruise ship had arrived at the docks of the French Quarter.  I've seen pictures of these cruise ships but they just don't do them justice.  This thing was HUGE.  Seriously.  It was taller than the bridge over the Mississippi River!  There was too much traffic for me to get a good picture of it though - boo :(

Anyhoooo, we didn't just take the GPS-designated route from New Orleans to Vicksburg.  We took a more scenic route.  It started with the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.  There's a reason we went this way.  There's a story.  When I was younger, I used to dream about being on a long, long road in the middle of water, water as far as the eye can see.  It was a recurring dream kind of thing.  

Then one day, I saw a picture of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and thought oh my god!  It exists!  I must visit it!   So, this trip, we did!  It was pretty cool.  24 miles of nothing but water.  

Then, In Mississippi we stopped at the Windsor Ruins.  These enormous pillars are all that's left of a pre-civil war mansion that was accidentally burned down soon after the Civil War ended, by cigarette ashes being dropped in an

area that was being renovated.  Stay away from cigarettes, people! They're bad for you and your house!  We also found a crater...no, more like a canyon, totally covered in Kudzu.  It was so covered in Kudzu (an invasive vining plant) that I couldn't tell if there was anything at the bottom of it.  River?  Train track?  Sandpit?  Secret entry to hell?  Who knows?

When we arrived in Vicksburg, we had some time before eating dinner.....all the museums were closed so we visited the city cemetery.  It's a pretty big cemetery.  In addition to over a hundred years of Vicksburg residents, it also contains the graves of 5,000 confederate soldiers.  In my opinion, they should have been buried in the national cemetery inside the civil war park in Vicksburg BUT I'm guessing they were seen as traitors to the country, and so were not allowed to be buried there.

Speaking of the civil war park, it's HUGE and tomorrow we're going on a 2 hour guided tour.  I can't wait!  I love history!

Road Trip Day 6 - New Orleans

Today was our day to explore New Orleans.  We started bright and early with the 3 1/2 hour "Isle of Orleans" tour by Grayline.  Our tour guide was great.  He grew up in New Orleans and was very funny and informative.  We went through several areas of New Orleans.  The architecture in New Orleans is gorgeous! Balconies, intricate iron work railings, pillars across the front porch.......and the yards!  Beautifully landscaped yards with such a variety of plant life!  We saw metal, concrete and earthen levees, designed to keep out the waters of the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico when Mother Nature gets a little worked up.  We took a walk through St. Louis Cemetery #3. Our tour guide explained how burial is handled in Nola, since most of the city is below sea level. 

So basically, you get your spot for a year and a day.  Then they take what's left of you, put it a plastic baggy and the next person in your family to die takes your spot.  There's one grave that has over a hundred nuns contained within!!  We only had about 15 minutes to look around.  I wish we could have spent more time here. I guess I'm a bit morbid - I love exploring cemeteries.  As it was, we were the last ones to get back on the bus because I wanted to get a picture of "one last one" haha.  

After the cemetery, we stopped at the City Park to check out the statue garden and have beignets and cafe au lait at "Morning Call".

I think I've found my new favorite fried food. Yum!  I need to find out how to make these at home.  Or.......maybe I don't - haha - they would NOT fit in with my new healthier lifestyle.  

We continued our tour around the city, through the ninth ward and made a stop at the new canal lighthouse.  There we got a walking tour through the new building along with a story about the old lighthouse (which was knocked over by Hurricane Katrina) as well as information about Lake Pontchartrain. On our way back to the French Quarter, we passed through the Garden District for more fantastic architecture and amazing landscaped yards. 

After that, we were on our own.  We found lunch at the Gumbo Pot, where Madison and I tried Jambalaya and Gumbo - sorry but neither of us were too impressed.  Maybe it was just the restaurant, or maybe it was our wimpy taste buds not able to take the heat.  We then took a walk over to Bourbon Street - we kept our stroll short since we had Madison -  and Bourbon Street is famous for everything that falls under the heading of "not suitable for children."  We did pop into the St Louis cathedral for a minute.  All I can say is "Wow!"  The inside is just breathtaking.

We decided to wrap up our day with a second helping of beignets (I told you they were yummy!), this time from the famed "Cafe du Monde."  These were served fresh out of the fryer and LIBERALLY doused in powdered sugar.  But oh so good!  And I'm not usually a coffee drinker, but I again enjoyed my beignets with a cup of cafe au lait.  

On our way back to the car, we did have a run-in with con-man who talked Carl out of a $20 for a shoe shine he didn't want, but got anyway.  He and his buddies then proceeded to follow us.  So we retreated into the Riverwalk mall for little bit but eventually, we made it back to the apartment, safe and sound.   Oh, by the way, that picture of the lit-up bridge?  That was the view from our apartment window.  That's the bridge over the Mississippi River, and our view from the apartment we stayed in.  Phew, alright.  I'm bushed.  Another day bites the dust.  Tomorrow, we're on the road again (don't lie - you sang that in Willie Nelson's voice).  Our final destination city is Vicksburg, Mississippi.  I'm really looking forward to it.  They have a huge Civil War park we're going to explore, as well as numerous museums!  Goodnight!

Road Trip Day 5 - Little Rock, AR to New Orleans, LA

Today we drove from Little Rock, Arkansas to New Orleans, Louisiana.  See that picture there on the left?  Farm land. Yep, we saw a LOT of farm land.  A lot.  However, I am happy because a good

portion of the farm land we drove by was.....cotton!  Two years ago, on our drive to Georgia, we passed by a cotton field.  I had never seen cotton on the plant before, and I didn't realize that's what it was.  I said "Oooh, look at the field of white flowers.  It's so pretty. I wonder what it is." Carl and Brandon were both quick to point out that it wasn't flowers, it was cotton.  I wanted to stop and get pictures but we were going very fast down a highway, with many other very fast cars around us, so Carl refused to stop.  This trip, I warned him that if we saw cotton, we WERE stopping for pictures. So, tada!

 

We did!  Ok, please forgive my ignorance as you read on from here.  I have never seen cotton on the plant up close, ok? I didn't expect it to just look like cotton balls.  Like, what you buy in the makeup section of Walmart.  Only dirty because, you know, it hasn't been all cleaned up yet.  I even grabbed a couple pieces.  No, I didn't steal it off the plant.  There were some loose bits here and there (and everywhere) on the ground, so I nabbed a few.

Our route took us through Vicksburg, Mississippi which is actually our NEXT destination after New Orleans.  So we got a little preview.  We stopped for lunch in downtown Vicksburg and let me just say I loved it, and I can't wait until we come back in a couple days to explore.  But for now - on to New Orleans!

As we got closer and closer to New Orleans, there was less land and more water.  In fact, there was a very long portion of the highway that was built on pillars because there was so much marsh and just enough land for people to build the occasional collection of houses.  I can only assume they access these houses by boat.

After dealing with some crazy traffic, and driving through some sketchy neighborhoods, we arrived at the house we're renting for a couple days.  The house is located about at close to the River as possible but we can't see the water from the window, thanks to the earthen levee across the road.  Although the house itself is also located in a neighborhood that, to me, seems a bit sketchy, the house is nice and the apartment we're staying in has sturdy doors and locks.  Tomorrow we explore!  For now, check out some more pics below:

Road Trip Day 4 - Little Rock, AR

Today we explored Little Rock. We started in the morning, and didn't stop until the sun went down.  I am exhausted but it was a good day! Our first stop was Little Rock Central High School.  I remember, in high school, learning about the desegregation of schools, particularly this school.  The first african-american students to attend are now known and the "little rock nine".  Today, we joined a National Parks tour of the school. and got a thorough re-education about desegregation.  The park ranger who lead the tour was the daughter of a national guardsman who was called in to help maintain peace during this time period, and included personal experience and insight in her tour. For me, it was a really emotional tour as I imagined how these children must have been feeling as mobs attacked them and flung insults at them simply for trying to get a better education for themselves.  If you are unfamiliar with the story, please check out the Little Rock Nine.

Our next stop was the capital building, It as built over 100 years ago and was modeled after the U.S. capital building.  We peeled into the state's supreme court, as well as where the house and senate convene.

After lunch, we hit a couple museums.  First was the Historic Arkansas Museum where we took a tour of some of the original homes ever built in the city - which are still standing on their original locations, right in the center of the city.  Standing next to a house built around 1827, and seeing the skyscraper right behind it, was quite the experience. Then we roamed the William J Clinton Presidential Library.  Turns out it's not a library at all.  It's a museum comprised of everything that happened - good and bad - during the 8 years of Bill Clinton's presidency.  They even have a life-size replica Oval Office in the museum.  Madison got to sit in the President's chair at the Resolute Desk.  It was pretty cool.  Right now, they also have a special exhibit on the Beatles.  Bill must have been a fan.  The downside to this museum?  It has signs explicitly forbidding the publication of ANY photos taken inside the museum. *sad face* So I have no pics for you.  

Check out this last one from the museum:  it's a picture of coins from way back when.  On the left, you'll see a $1 coin.  According to our tour guide, it was the only coin travelers carried.  If they needed to pay something less than $1, they simply cut the coin in pieces.  So from left to right we have 1)the $1 coin.  2)then cut in half the pieces become 1/2 dollars.  3)cut into halves again and you have 4 quarters of a dollar (quarters......get it? Yep, that's how we got quarters).  3) One last set of cuts gets you.....nope, not dimes, nickels or pennies.  You get "bits". Each bit is worth 12 /2 cents.

Our last stop of the day was to the Little Rock National Cemetery. and it's neighbor, the Oakland Fraternal Cemetery.  These two cemeteries are both VERY large.  Side by side, they make up one ENORMOUS cemetery, with tombstones as old as the Civil War!  

Phew.  Now you can see why I'm exhausted!  Check out the pictures below and then stay tuned for Day 5!

Road Trip Day 3 - St. Louis, MO to Little Rock, AR

I'm writing to you from a new city tonight.  We spent 6 hours on the road today, traveling about 350 miles from St. Louis, Missouri to Little Rock, Arkansas.  We drove through some small mountains in the Mark Twain National Forest, but other than that, it was an exceedingly uneventful (and by uneventful, I really mean boring) drive.  There was so much flat, wide-open farmland.  And most of it looked dead or dusty.  We passed a little bit of cotton at one point, but there wasn't much, and there were too many cars around us to stop and check it out.  After we found our hotel and scrounged up dinner, we drove into town to check out Little Rock's "Bid Dam Bridge" - a bike and pedestrian bridge over the Arkansas River.  Tomorrow there will be much more exploration happening.  But for now.....here are some pictures to check out!

Road Trip Day 2 - St. Louis, MO

Wow am I wiped out.  Today we explored St Louis.  We spent most of the day at the City Museum.  It was really cool!  There were 4 main floors  and then one section that went up to the tenth floor - and had a slide all the way back down!  Most of the museum is made up of tubes to crawl through, and slides,  and caves to explore, and holes to crawl into.  Madison spent a lot of time exploring.  I joined her a couple times and ended up winded and sweaty.  And now, at 10 pm as we sit in the apartment settling down and getting ready for bed, I am feeling sore muscles in places I didn't even know muscles existed!  Here's some pictures:

Then while Carl was still selling his stuff at the geocaching event, Madison and I went to see the main attraction in St Louis: The St. Louis Archway.  It's located right on the Mississippi River.  Did you know you can take a tram ride, inside the arch, all the way to the top?  There are viewing windows up there!  They're so small, they're hard to see from the ground, and don't really show up in pictures.  They pack 5 people like sardines into eight little space-like pods (the tram cars) and then it's a 4 minute ride up to the top,   Madison didn't like how high it was - 630 feet up there! - so we didn't stay very long.  And, as we were waiting for a tram for the return trip down, someone pointed out that you can feel the whole thing swaying.  That really didn't help!

And now for the funny story of the day.  We had left the arch, walked back to the car, and were making our way back to the City Museum to pick up Carl, because his event was over.  I thought I was in the lane of traffic that went straight (at the very confusing intersection) but it turned out I was in a right turn only lane.  By the time I realized it, it was too late.  There were cars next to me, so I couldn't change lanes.  So I followed the other cars in my lane.  Only to discover that this path I was on was heading across the Mississippi River, with no exit options.  So Madison and I accidentally ventured into Illinois, got off the highway, turned around, got back on the highway and crossed BACK over the Mississippi River, BACK into Missouri........That is why Carl drives when we're in the city. 

Tomorrow, we move on to Little Rock, Arkansas!  See ya then!

Time for a ROAD TRIP!!!

Hello, hello, hello!  I'm writing to you from St. Louis, Missouri!  And those of you who know me, know that St. Louis is far away from my home.....630 miles away, to be more precise.  This is the first day of a 10 day road trip for our family.  A long awaited road trip.  We started planning this in March!  I'm so excited today finally arrived!  So excited, in fact, that I wanted to share the trip with you.  So stay tuned....each day, I'll share with you some pictures and adventures we get ourselves into.

Day 1, Friday: It took us 11 hours to get here.  11 hours of radio stations fading in and out, semi trucks galore, construction, traffic, crazy drivers and at one point, a gross, chunky, slimy, disgusting looking spill on the road from a dump truck labeled "not for human consumption."  Blech,  But we made it!  Here are a few photos from today's trek:

"Get your kicks, on route 66"

Part of our drive today was along the historic route 66.  And you see the picture of the deer?  Ordinary deer right? Well, kind of.  These deer were munching just feet away from a walking trail, and were completely unperturbed by the people and cars going by so close to them.  That pretty little river was behind a rest area somewhere south of Chicago.  And - tada! - St. Louis!  The archway, of course, and the stadium home of the St. Louis Cardinals.  And finally, on the lower right, is the little apartment we are staying in for the weekend, just outside the city limits of St. Louis.  It's tiny, but cute, and unlike a hotel room, we have a sitting room and a kitchen.  Wanna know a secret?  It cost us less than any of the hotels we found in the city.  Next time you travel, you have GOT to check out the website www.airbnb.com - seriously! No, I'm not being paid to promote them.  Go check it out.  You can rent entire apartments or houses - sometimes with hot tubs or pools or other fun amenities - often for the same cost as a hotel, or less!  Ok, I'm done with my commercial.  Haha.  See you all tomorrow with a summary of our explorations of St. Louis!  Adios!

Anxiety

I have a lot of things coming up at various times this year that I just don't feel like I have enough time to prepare for them. Like what, you ask?
- the dirty dog dash - it's tomorrow. I didn't train. I know, my own fault. I had plenty of time but I wasted it.
- my son's graduation - it's the day after tomorrow. The only prep needed in mentally, and you could say I've had 18 years to prepare for this.....but parents, is it ever possible to actually be ready for this?
- my son's graduation party - it's next week. Friends and family are coming from all over the state. My house needs major cleaning. And, can I afford to feed all the people I promised a meal?
- music festival - I was planning on having a booth at festival this year. It's not until August but I just can't figure out how to put together a decent amount of "stock" in time.
- road trip - this is in October. Plenty of time left for this one right? Is it? We don't know exactly where we're going yet, or what we're going to do there. How can you plan a budget and save money when you don't know?

So my anxiety levels are through the roof right now. You're thinking, hey we all get nervous and worry about stuff, no big deal. No - you don't understand. What I mean is, my hands are shaking, my heart is pounding, my breathing is shallow and quick. I'm sitting in my car holding back tears (well, most of them), telling myself to breathe in, breathe out, repeat; and I'm trying to talk myself into going for a walk when all I want to do is point my car south and drive until I run out of gas and money. Breathe in.....breathe out.........

Obsession

Hello, hello, hello!  

Did I ever mention how much I love to read?  Yep. Nerd here. I’m reading ALL THE TIME.  The story immerses me, I get lost in the words, and the real world just disappears.  Seriously! You could sit next to me, and talk to me for 10 minutes without me even knowing it. Pretty impressive since normally, I have an attention span like Dory, from Finding Nemo.  I don’t just read the words, though.  It’s a sensory experience for me.  I see the colorful scenes. I feel the water, the wind, the fabrics. I feel the emotions – I have cried with a heartbroken character, my stomach drops when they receive bad news, and I have actually laughed out loud in a crowded, quiet room because something silly happened in the book. Some books I fly through, discard and then I move on.  Other books just have that certain something.

I started reading the Harry Potter books almost by accident.  I had just graduated from college, and we were temporarily living with my mom.  I was home alone with my three-year-old son, who was napping.  I had finished my most recent book and I was searching the house for something else to feed the reading monster inside of me.  I had already read all the books on my shelf, and on my mom’s shelf.  My sister was fifteen at the time, so I knew the few books she had would be a bit young for me but I was desperate.  My favorite book genre is fantasy, so when I saw Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone I thought “Why not?” 

It didn’t take long before I was totally hooked.  An orphan is raised by his neglectful, stuck-up, prejudiced family members.  Then someone comes along, tells him he has special powers and belongs to a special community, and takes him away to a new a wonderful life.  Seriously, you can’t tell me you’ve never dreamed about someone coming to tell you that there’s been a mistake and all this time there was a bigger, better, cooler life awaiting you?   He learns all about this new world and his powers, makes life-long friends and discovers that he’s famous for accidentally destroying an evil villain when he was just a baby.  Oh, and there’s magic, unicorns, goblins, elves, giants, broomsticks, dragons……. Ok, so the whole series was written for children.  Or at least the first few books were.  The first book came out in 1998.  Let’s assume an 8-year-old read the book when it first came out.  By the time Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out in 2007, that kid was 17.   I believe the books grew up alongside their readers.  The story gets a little more grown-up, and a bit darker as the series goes on.  Evil plots, murder, kidnapping, dating and jealousy, love, loyalty, war and self-sacrifice.  I went to midnight releases of the books.  I was at the midnight showings of the movies.  I now own all the books and all the movies on DVD. 

My son started reading the series in second grade.  Up until then, he wasn’t really into reading.  We would prefer to sit in his room building lego things, or climbing trees outside (I’m certainly NOT saying either of those pastimes are BAD! Don’t think that. It was great!) I credit the Harry Potter series with springboarding my son’s reading.  Over the years, he and I have had long discussions about various aspects of the story.  We’ve talked about dragons and house elves.  We’ve discussed how awesome the Hogwarts teachers are, which one is our favorite and why.  We’ve looked up recipes for food dishes mentioned in the books, and tried to make some (remind me to tell you about Butterbeer! Yum!).  He’s now 18 and we STILL have in-depth conversations about things like which animal our wand core might come from, and whether certain woods are more magical than others.  We quote the books and movies in our everyday conversations – a fact that irks my husband to no end.  My daughter, who is 12,  has recently joined our ranks.  She read the first book last summer.  I’m pretty sure it was the first book she ever actually finished.  She finished the last one in February and has since read the Hunger Games trilogy, the Chronicles of Narnia series and 2 other series I can’t remember the names of.  Another avid reader, credited to Harry Potter. 

Ok, so why did I just spend an entire blog rambling on and on about my family’s Harry Potter obsession?  It was really a LONG introduction to my next post.  Recently we decided to completely immerse ourselves in the stories we love, and visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Florida……and it was AWESOME!   And I want to share it with you!  Stay tuned!  I’ll have the whole scoop, with pictures, in my next blog update!!  For now, I’ll leave you with this link:

25 Life Lessons I Learned from Harry Potter

Creamy Chicken

I have a recipe that my mom gave me that I'd like to share with you. It's for a super creamy rice and chicken casserole. Comfort food at its finest, and it's super easy too! 

Monterey Tortilla Chicken Casserole
1 cup shredded Monterey chicken
1 cup cottage cheese
3 cups cooked chicken, diced
1 cup sour cream
3 cups cooked rice
3 oz cream cheese
1 TSP garlic powder
Tortilla chips

In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients, except for the tortilla chips. Spread evenly into a 9x13 pan. Crush some Tortilla chips and sprinkle them on top (I like mine extra crunchy so I make this layer about half an inch thick). Bake at 350° for about 30 minutes.

Mmmmm, everything gets all gooey and melty. Well, except for the tortilla chips of course. Ha ha! Scoop some into a couple bowls (or just one if you decide not to share this deliciousness), grab a spoon and dig in!

Plow drivers: heroes or villains?

I have mixed feelings about these guys. On one hand, they're kind of heroes. They go out in the wee hours while most of us are sleeping. They work in terrible weather, the kind that makes most of us just want to cuddle under a blanket and stay exactly where we are.....INDOORS. They clear the roads and make it safer for everyone to travel.

On the other hand, I have had a couple too-close-for-comfort encounters that lead me to beleive they don't give a flying flip about anyone on the roads with them.
Example 1: a couple weeks ago, I came to a stop sign. A plow also came up to a stop sign, at the same intersection, across from me. So he was facing me. He apparently needed to go back the way he had come from. So he made a right turn onto the cross road, then backed up towards me!  I had to quickly put my car into reverse and back away, otherwise he would have backed right over me!!
Example 2: this happened about 2 years ago on my way to work. Again, I come to an intersection. This time there's a traffic light (blinking yellow, as it was early). I needed to turn left, so I signaled and got into the left turn lane. I saw the plow coming toward me, so I waited for him to pass before turning. I noticed he was in his left turn lane, so naturally I assumed he was turning. But he didnt. He kept coming straight toward me. I realized he was not stopping and I tried to get out of the way. The roads were slick so my tires spun, but I managed to scoot a lane to the right JUST in time.
Has anyone else had a close encounter with a county road plow?

The Next Step

Hello all! Happy new year!
Early last year, I wrote about a crazy feeling I had - like I needed to prepare so my family could survive some unseen disaster. Thankfully, no such disaster has hit us.....yet. But the feeling hasn't gone away. I feel a  it better about though, since I have spent the last year doing something about it. Not a lot, mind you. I have a right budget and have to do things in small steps. After writing that blog last year, I went out, bought some lumber, and built myself some pantry shelves in an unused space in my bathroom. Since then, I have been buying an extra box of this, an extra can of this.... Yesterday, I looked at the shelves and thought "if we had to, we could live for a week or so off the food on our pantry" and it was a proud moment.  Today, I decided to move onto the next step. What's the next step? I wasn't sure. The furnace kicked on in reply.  If the power went out in the middle of the winter, how would we stay warm? Our furnace is propane, but the fan that circulates the warm air, yeah, it runs on electricity. So this is my next mission. Figure out how to keep 4 people, 3 cats and a dog warm.....for a week.

Guilt Trip

I feel guilty because I work. I'm at work more than I'm at home with the kids. Sometimes the kids are home alone because I'm working and the hubby is somewhere doing something.  But I feel guilty when I have to say no to something the kids want because I don't have enough money. Gotta work. I feel guilty because I'm a manager at a retail store, instead of an engineer, because I spent 5 years studying to be an engineer, and we'd have much more money if I was. I feel guilty because I'm a night owl and hubby isn't. So when he goes to bed, I'm not tired yet, so I stay up and watch TV or read or sew or write or play games on my phone.  When I have several opening shifts in a row, and I get tired early (because I'm not a morning person and getting up THAT early makes me exhausted), I feel guilty for going to bed when hubby stays up to finish a movie.  I feel guilty when I don't go for a run, because I know I should, because I need to exercise and take care of me. BUT when I go running, I feel guilty because I should be home doing stuff and spending time with the family. I feel guilty because my house isn't Mrs Cleaver clean. I feel guilty every time I look at my craft table because it's buried in half-done projects. Some of them for the kids, but they're too old for them now.

I am wracked with guilt day in, day out, no matter what I do or don't do. It makes me want to scream sometimes. I need to make if stop, but I don't know how.

Plaster on a Smile

Depression has a way of sneaking up on you and taking over all your thoughts.  It can take a perfectly normal thought, or a conversation or argument, or a casual comment and use it to turn you against yourself. And suddenly, every evil thought you've had about yourself, every rude comment from strangers, every insult, every unintentionally hurtful thing said to you...escapes from behind the wall you built up.  The wall that was supposed to hold all those thoughts and voices, and keep them hidden....from the world, from yourself.  And when that dam breaks, so does the one holding back the tears.  And you end up sitting on the floor, hugging your knees, crying uncontrollably, while thoughts like "you're fat and lazy" and "if only you were prettier, thinner, happier, better with money, smarter......." and "how could anyone possibly love you?" and "you do more damage than good" and "your family would be better off without you" play through your head, on repeat. 

Sometimes I do think my hubby and kids would be better off without me.  I've never considered suicide. But I fantasize about running away. Finding a place where I've never been and no one knows me,  dropping all contact with anyone who knows me now and finding a little corner of that place where I can live the rest of my life without screwing with anyone else's life.  Hubby could find someone prettier and thinner and fitter who loves to do the same things he loves to do, who loves to cook & clean and is awesome at budgeting & paying bills.  I would no longer be a bad role model for the kids. 

But they wouldn't understand. They wouldn't see things the way I see them.  All they would see is me running away. They would think I abandoned them, that I don't love them enough to stay.  The kids would grow up resenting me for leaving. 

So, I will dry my tears.  I will work at building that wall again, try to make it stronger than before. I'll stuff all the bad thoughts and evil voices behind it again. I'll plaster on a smile, and pretend that everything is ok.  And maybe, for a while, it will be.  But, I wonder..........how long it will last this time?