Christmas with the Kids

We went and spent Christmas Eve Morning with the kids since Santa visited them early so they could go to Knoxville and see Michael's sister and her family. Grandma Patty sent more than enough presents, so we helped them figure out which presents went to which child (though Julian opened both of theirs from us and wondered why he got a pink fish!) and Jeremy played the good uncle and took all the packaging off from grandma's presents.

And we're off!

Regan got Violet a little kid laptop! 

"Open it! I play with it now!"

Auntie Margaret put tons of tape on, so I had to help V open them

Michael helps V open a particularly sticky package

Julian making a fish face and Violet liking the sparkles

She was very amused by the nose on the elephant ornament!

We finally got her to rip some of the wrapping paper!

It was a fun morning, and the kids got some really neat stuff. Julian got an Angler fish and when he pretended like it was going to bite Violet SHE bit the FISH! That girl is fearless! She got some more stuff for her play kitchen, and a little dollhouse that goes with a book series, several books, and of course ornaments from me and Jeremy. It will be interesting to see what gets donated and what they end up keeping! (every year, Grandma Patty gets them way too much stuff for their tiny house, so Michael will put some of it up in the attic for when they grow out of their current toys, and some of them go to the thrift stores for other kids to enjoy!) Who knows, maybe next year they'll have a little Clark baby to help open their presents!

Thanksgiving pt. 1

I really love Thanksgiving, but it's always hard to be away from home for it. I'd thought when we first got married that maybe we would do Thanksgiving in Atlanta and Christmas in Indiana-- Christmas means a lot more to Jeremy's family and Thanksgiving to mine. In the end, I think it's nice to switch it up, and this year has been particularly great with having a whole 9 days off to come up and really spend time with Josh and Sarah!

We drove up to Memphis first on Saturday, and I got to meet some of my amazing extended Alpha family and help out with KO's (my home chapter) elections! I got some great ideas from that to bring back to Gamma Sigma, so I'm excited to propose those for next year.

Andrea, my Great Grand Little! She's from the Atlanta area, so I'm excited to get to see her when she's home from breaks!

Maggie and Morgan are on either end-- they're my Great Great Great Grand Littles, and Sam is next to me in red, and she is their big sis, my Great Great Grand Little!

I love meeting my Alpha family, and it was so wonderful for them to be as excited as I was! They seem like really amazing girls and I can't wait to meet my Great Great Great Great Grand Littles next year!! 

Really, July?

It has gotten hot here. And it's been hot all summer, but now it's just oppressive. I love love love living in the South, but every now and again we have a summer that's just KILLER! Don't get me wrong, I'll take this over the heat in Arizona any day, but GUH it would be nice to walk out the door and not want to walk right back inside!

This summer has been exhausting; there's so much more to deal with than there was last summer and I'm so tired of people expecting a thousand things from me that they know I can't do. If you want hours, don't take days off. If you're bothered by something, mention it instead of letting it fester. The usual obvious stuff! But, after school is about to start and hopefully it will be a little less stressful.

We found out last weekend that Ana and Valerie were back down in Memphis; we'd assumed they were staying in Indiana. I'm hoping we get to go up soon since we couldn't afford to last weekend. It'd be amazing to see them again, and we promised Ana we'd see her before China and Mitike got here. We're not sure about when Matt and Valerie will be able to go get them, but it's looking like it might be a little bit longer so that could give us some time. We keep trying to get everyone to come visit us in Atlanta now that we have extra bedrooms and some great new Ethiopian restaurants under our belt, but so far no go!

September we're going to take a week off which will hurt financially, but we need a break. I'm planning on going up to see my Aunt and Uncle in NC since we haven't seen them since the wedding and the last time we were up there was right after my wisdom teeth surgery so I wasn't very with it! We can go up the week of Jeremy's birthday and maybe have a little bit of a honeymoon (finally...) and meet my cousin's new baby girl, Blakely! November might be excellent because all the school districts have Thanksgiving WEEK off and we may not have to open for Thanksgiving! That means we could go to Indiana early since it's our year to be there for Thanksgiving and here for Christmas and spend plenty of time with Josh and Sarah, and maybe Ana, Matt, and Valerie if the paperwork comes in at the last minute!

I'm excited for the rest of the year. Now that we're (generally) moved in to our new place, I think it'll be easier for us to cook at home a little more and spend less money going out! We're also going to try to get on top of the job search for Jeremy! Hopefully we can find him something he really enjoys and that will get us a little more income... that would be helpful for our travel expenses for sure!

Well, that's enough for now, hopefully I'll have a little more time to keep y'all updated!!

Ciao for now!

Family!!

I know I've fallen behind on my Memphis updates and I have TONS of pictures to post, but this is the most important one right now-- Valerie received word today that the MOWA letter finally reached court today which means Jeremy and I have a new niece and nephew!

Welcome to the family China and Mitike!

Something new?

Not really, but here I am anyway! I've gotten down to business watching some of my Netflix queue, really trying to get through some of it since it's QUITE large. Over 100 titles on instant play, and that's just the actual queue. The DVD section is completely out of hand, probably around 400 discs. Insane.

I watched "Surrogates" this morning, it came out last year or the year before and has Bruce Willis in it, and it was really quite good. I mean, there was a little social commentary, but it wasn't really heavy handed and the story moved along really well without getting distracted by the subplots.

Now I'm watching "The Alphabet Killer" which is a thriller with Eliza Dushku. No reports yet, I'm only about ten minutes in ;)

As noted, we had an extremely long week last week and as a result have just kinda puttered around this weekend. I got my comforter washed (which was badly needed) and the bedclothes and some general stuff, stayed up on a cleaning/organizing binge whereupon I discovered that an entire magnum of Benadryl spilled in my travel bag and ruined the $100 gift certificate to Savage Pizza from one of my after school families. I'm going to go talk to them and see if they can pull anything up or give me a break, I would hate for the family that gifted it to me to have wasted their money! I know I need to put those things in zip loc bags, but I forget and then something like this happens, just about every time!

I don't have any pictures from recent events, but hopefully Michael will get some up and I can steal them from him. I feel awful because we've been SO busy recently I didn't have time to mail Ana's birthday present! We miss her SO much, and wish we could have gotten them there on time, but I'm sure she'll be excited anyway-- everyone loves a late birthday gift, it always feel like you birthday all over ;)

That's about all the news that's fit to print, and a little that isn't. I'm off to figure out what to get for Jan for her birthday since EVERYONE's birthday is in September! Della, Pops, March, Jan, Jeremy, John, Ana, Peanut, it's crazy!

Ciao for now!

Oh, AND...

Welcome to the world James Lewis! Born September 9, 2010 at 6:28pm 7lb 1.8oz, 19.5''

Caq, James, and Lewis-- one happy family!

Pictures from the Farm

I didn't get any of the horses because they let them run wild and they're kind of elusive. As you can tell, we didn't really ever get good light, and Jeremy decided that the light was way too bad by the time I got up in the saddle to take pictures!

Anyway, here are a handful from the Traylor house!

Doe, she left her baby behind that morning

TJ and the crew-- TJ's the one who chases Earl around!

Tu, the new puppy, who has a love hate relationship with Lady

I couldn't get a shot of the wings open to save my life! I took about 20 shots trying!

I loved this gazebo-- it has hanging things, plants, and seats. So perfect!

The boys on the 4 wheeler

Tu

Josh and Sarah on the 4 wheeler

What vacation?

Sunday: I went and picked up the 2nd rental car from the airport and then we left for the Traylor house in Paris, TN to spend a day or so out on the farm. We got there about dinner time and settled in, Earl threw a bunch of brain benders at us and we sat up playing puzzles for the rest of the night. I am not that great at those things, but it was fun to watch Jeremy and Josh blow right through them! Sarah and I stumbled through a few and then brushed them aside when Earl wasn't looking!

Monday: Slept "in" and by that I mean we got up at 8a. Amazing what sleeping in entails when you're used to 6:30a! We sat around and watched some Discovery in HD, then Sarah went back to bed for a while (her stomach was giving her problems) and Josh and I went with Uncle Matt and Grandma Traylor over to the Mennonite store to do some shopping. I picked up a couple of little embroidered doilies for mom's belated present, some snacks for the car (yogurt covered raisins and figs!) and Matt got me some fig preserves to try out. We went to another Mennonite store, Yoder Bros., where the meat processing takes place and I bought more stuff! Matt had never tried Muscadines, so I returned the favor with some Muscadine preserves and picked up some Habanero pickles for Jeremy. Josh picked up some Habanero cheddar for us to enjoy, and enjoy we did! It was soooo nice and creamy, great flavors, and we still have most of it left to munch on for the rest of the week!

We got back and Jeremy started making yeast rolls, Josh and I watched more Discovery HD (seriously, Discovery channel is awesome, it's even better in HD!) and I went out and took some pictures of the dogs, turkeys, and birds. The neighbor Dan (Dan, Dan, the CIA man) came over for dinner and was a real treat. He doesn't talk about his CIA past much, but you can tell he's worked in the area.

After dinner, Earl took us back out to the pasture and saddled up the horses! He took me out on Buddy first, the easier horse, then I swapped out to Earl's horse Dago and Sarah got up on Buddy and we walked them around the yard; for those of you unfamiliar, the yard is reeeeeeally big! I walked us up to the porch so everyone could see Sarah on the horse (it was only her second time up on a horse) and they both spooked big time from some of the birds in the trees! I got Dago under control pretty quick, and Earl hopped off the porch and got Buddy out from under Sarah-- she was scared, but she held it together pretty well!

I rode around with Earl a while longer, then we put the horses back to pasture and went back to the porch to watch the storm come in. Then we got wise and went in to take showers in case the power went out! We watched some more Discovery channel, and fell in to bed.

Today: Woke up after a rough night's sleep (this cough just won't go away! Thankfully, Jeremy's seems to be getting better) and went with the boys in to the Suzuki shop after breakfast. We went ahead and stopped by Enterprise because the scraping noise in the car just got super loud! Poor little Paris, TN Enterprise only had about 8 cars on the lot and they were all going out, but they called the Decatur branch to try and swap it out for us. One of the guys at the Decatur branch (shockingly) said to send us up to get it checked out. So, we got in the car with the suspected brake problem and went up the street. The guy got us in and checked it out perfunctorily and sent us on our way. "Well, I don't hear anything and the brake pads look good so must be ok!" After wasting an hour there I said fine, we'll drive it back to Memphis, but if it makes one more noise I'm swapping it out.

We got back and had lunch, packed up and said our goodbyes and hit the road. The car was still making noise, so I called the airport and asked to come in and swap out. I gave them a little time to get some new cars in and went on up. They got me set really quickly, and even gave me the Hyundai Santa Fe (my dream car) and then... Atlanta wouldn't answer the phone to approve the swap. For over an hour. Today alone, I wasted 3+ hours on the rental car! This is the second one that broke, and if I don't have my Hyndai in the morning there will be even more hell to pay. I missed dinner with the family, Jeremy missed dinner coming to get me, not to mention the hassle.

Now I feel kinda sick again, but I'm trying to stay in a decent mood and stay up to finish the Deadliest Catch tribute to Phil Harris. So sad that he's gone!

Pictures later, and more vacation updates. Hopefully I'll come home with the right car tomorrow!

Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennessee

We're in Southaven with Jan and Marc, and Josh and Sarah! Our trip up was pretty good, fairly easy and relaxed. We're going to leave shortly to head to Grandma and Grandpa Traylor's and see them for a couple of days.

There will be plenty of pictures from there, no doubt, between the horses and the infamous turkey!

Sooo, it's been a while

There are a few reasons for my prolonged disappearance... the most of which is my smashed computer screen. Which didn't get fixed because Sony f'd up and couldn't actually sell me the warranty I bought. And they still haven't given me back my money. STILL. The're getting on my nerves juuuust a little.

Anyway, I'm pretty solidly in to my director's position at after school and I'm in the middle of trying to figure out how to split up my job so that I could have an AD and possibly an office manager for the summer. The other good news is that Jeremy and I are FINALLY in a place where we can look at an apartment of our own!! Squee!

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/apa/1596256463.html

That's the apartment we're looking at and this is what the owner has to say:

"Meg, the apartment is a turn of the century Victorian house with huge porch, large living room with 10' ceilings, antique fire place, original china cabinet, laundry, pocket doors, new kitchen, c/h/a (included in rent) new bath with vintage b&w tile floor, pedestal sink, huge double headed shower with glass block, walk in closet. $850 includes utilities. The apartment is in perfect shape & it's a great neighborhood. You can walk to downtown Decatur & Oakhurst."

We think c/h/a means central heating and air, but we'll see. She sent a few pictures that look pretty nice, and it's in a decent area so hopefully it'll work out. I think I was actually the first person to respond, so I'm going to look at it tomorrow morning. If it looks good, we're probably going to jump on it! Between the two of us we can definitely afford $855/mo and we're DYING for a place of our own!

Plus, the built in china cabinet doesn't hurt ;) We have to have somewhere to display wedding china and the ENTIRE SET of cobalt glasses Jay Yau got us!!

Brief interlude: Ellen DeGeneres is still as cute as she's always been. LOVE her.

What else has happened? A lot, I'm sure, but I can't even remember!

Let's see-- the last time I updated we were in MS visiting family... we saw "When in Rome" with Joanna for my birthday, and hit up The Matador for dinner. We went to Tybee for a marathon, which was loads of fun! I MISS COASTAL GEORGIA!!!

I left my camera in MS, so there aren't a lot of pictures from the last month, but I'll post some soon from Christmas on!

ciao for now!

Day of Killing (and eating) Turkeys

This Thanksgiving is out of the norm. Which is saying something since last Thanksgiving we had Taco Mac with Emily, the year before turkey with Suzy, and the year before that (the first year Jeremy and I knew each other) I served slightly overcooked chicken breast in a semi-debacled Amy and Meg hosted Thanksgiving. I guess I'm used to Thanksgiving with Family (in caps) being a little more formal. We bust out the good china and put on our best-- if you don't use your good stuff for holidays, when will you ever use it?!

Right now I'm in Indiana with Jeremy's family, and it tugs at my heartstrings because I was so looking forward to finally spending a Thanksgiving with my mom, but Jeremy hadn't been up here in over a year so I told him we'd come. Plus, we're kind of hoping that one of us will land something that will prohibit travel in the days after the wedding. You know, like a job!

It's been nice seeing Josh and Sarah, though, they're so sweet, and they're in the middle of renovating this house they just moved in to. They're renting it, but it was Sarah's grandmother's house and needs a LOT of work! After failed attempts at peeling layer after layer after layer (and possibly more) of wallpaper off the walls (of which I had no part because I was in the middle of wedding details and I was scarred by the process when we lived on Westchester), we all decided it would be best to do some creative renovating and skip the pain and suffering of having to use dark magic to remove this wall paper. That cuts out a lot of the work for tomorrow, which means we will get to see Swiggett since she's just over in Bloomington!!!

I'm so very very close to finishing these bridesmaids bags, and now I just have to find a few things to put in them. Emily's helping me out, and I'm going to get a couple of other travel-sized things, plus I've been looking at all these awesome vintage brooches on eBay that are going for like $1 each! If the price stays under $1.50, I'm going to get each of them a brooch and they can keep it, pin it on their bag, or put it in their hair (which is what I'm doing with mine). I found this bracelet which matches an old necklace of my Granny's that mom has now, so that's going to be mom's present, and then this pin which might be an interesting addition to the fascinator I'm conning Meg in to helping me with, and these earrings which are very similar to the 1928 earrings I wanted! It would be really great if I could get them at or under my max bid of $7, because that would mean I'd saved something like $60 for very similar earrings! I'm bidding on a couple of other things right now (not that I super need to spend the money, but it's all told under $25) that will either go for the wedding or to the brooch collection that I am TOTALLY starting-- thank you for the inspiration Madeleine Albright! (side note: I'm totally hoping that I can talk Jeremy in to Moto GP tickets next fall for when the exhibit is in Indianapolis since apparently we don't get it in Atlanta-- que ridiculo!)

Plus, if I have some luck getting $1 brooches off of eBay, I can use them to decorate little bags, which I can totally sew with ease and put up on my etsy store (in spite of the fact that it's not doing a whole lot for me at the moment...) for sale. I need to start looking in to sewing laptop cases like I've seen in boutiques-- they sell them for like $50 and they would totally only take like $10 to make!

I've gotten a lot of my food budgeting done for the wedding, and thankfully Vicki is saving me big time by donating three trays (!) of Chick Fil A nuggets! I'm going to do the sushi still, it's the one thing I'm dying to have and I won't cut it out, I even cut the beer out of the budget just so I could have it.

We did get bad news, though. Valerie and Matt's court date got changed, so they won't even be bringing Ana over and going to Ethiopia without her. Jeremy's very sad about it, he misses her so much, and I'm sad because we'd made it in December so they could be there. :\ Such is life, I suppose. Pictures will be a little more difficult with Violet as flower girl, but they do have the absolute perfect dress, and with Julian as our ring bearer, Michael as a groomsman, and Meg an honorary bridesmaid... it's really quite fitting that Violet should join the party!

PS, our wedding has gotten quite out of hand! Apparently we have too much family!

I'll close this super long post now with my little Thanksgiving peace:

I am thankful for my friends and my family. This year has been extremely hard and there's no way I could have made it without them! Let me introduce you:

My mom, my brother Casey, and (of course) Jeremy

Vivi! Violet (9mos) Kavanaugh, our flower girl!

Michael, Violet and Julian's dad, and a groomsman

Meg, Nan, Violet, Della, and Iggy-- they're actually related, but have taken us in anyway!

Meg is an honorary bridesmaid of sorts

Meg, we are both goofy. She is also Julian and Violet's mother.

Sarah and Caq

Julian, our ring bearer, at his 3rd birthday last spring

These people are our family, though we may not all be related, and I am SO thankful for them!

I am also thankful for Jeremy, he is such an amazing friend and fiance, and I'm so thrilled I'm going to spend the rest of my life with him. We push each other and try each other every day, and I'm so glad we're together.

I'm also thankful for what I have. It may not be much, but it is something. I have a roof over my head, I have an awesome family (there are STILL a ton of people I'm missing in that family thing above!), I'm not going hungry, and I have some semblance of employment. Things could definitely be worse.

Here's to the coming year, to more things for which to be thankful, and finishing up this wedding majigger!

ciao for now folks,

M

Labor Day Weekend!

First three day weekend (and probably the last) of the school year! It's about the only three day weekend we get off work since the rest of the school holidays aren't ones parents necissarily get off, so we have to work full days on those.

Friday we went and hung out with Emmy, went to Taco Mac and got some yummy wings (even though our overall service was decent, the cooking was questionable) and then went back to her place and watched "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist" which was really cute. I don't know who played the drunk chick, but she was SO good! We dropped by the K's on our way home and hung out for a short while there, then headed home to get some sleep.

Saturday we got up early to go to race number pickup for Jeremy and Michael out at the Galleria. There was a whole little carnival type thing set up for the kids that was a lot of fun. Jeremy talked Julian in to the big slide, and I taught him how to shoot a wrist shot at the Thrashers tent! We finally headed out when Julian started getting grumpy and tired and Jeremy and I stayed and watched Violet while Michael took Jules to Dragon*Con-- since she crashed out pretty quickly, we watched "Iron Man" (IMO, the best superhero movie yet) and chilled on the couch. Then we just kind of hung around, watched some "30 Rock" and drank some wine!

Sunday we were going to go to OBC for services, but mom had swine flu (maybe, really, possibly actually did?) so we decided it was best if we stayed in-- there are so many old people AND little kids with all the adoptions there, no sense in us getting them sick (since we thought maybe we'd been exposed to it, or at least what the K's had last week) so instead we looked around the weak Labor Day sales. Jeremy did find some AMAZING deals on tools-- if he hadn't gotten the discounts he did, it would have cost him almost twice as much!! Now I can let him buy me a real engagement ring ;) since he's bought what he needs for work. I shopped around, got some more stuff at Target and Michael's for crafting and the wedding, a couple of tank tops at New York and Company.

Monday was Jeremy's 10k which he ran with Michael in under an hour (which was just for fun for Jeremy, but a new record for Michael!) and ended at White Water! We went in and I actually got to ride some of the rides this time, and had a lot of fun. Can't wait to go next summer!!

Well, my elbow is kind of hurting, so I'll just leave you with some pictures from this weekend. Ciao for now!

Julian-- not so much with the wrist shot

I don't knooooow about this, Jeremy!

Me and Jeremy taking Vivi on Lazy River

Vivi and her favorite "uncle" ever!

Julian's long weekend treat-- a popsicle.

Indeed

Well, last Saturday Jeremy got here and we've been trying to squeeze him in ever since-- we both just have too much stuff! I've got him a few hours a week at FBC working with me, but there's also a possibility of an opportunity at the Goodyear in town which obviously isn't exactly what he's looking for, but might pay the bills for a while. We're thinking that if he gets that, we'll look at some of the 1 BR apartments (carriage houses, in-laws suites, etc) around town because we need at least a little more space. Plus, the 1BRs around here have been on the market for so long that we might be able to talk them down a little in rent!

Work was kind of crazy this week, but it went smoothly, and hopefully will continue to go smoothly. I didn't get the job at Emory, which isn't a surprise (someone who was laid off in my mom's round of downsizing applied for it, so she had immediate preference), but I'm up for another one which would be great. It'd be really hard for me to leave AS, but I think Richard kind of understands that I do need to find something that will pay more of the bills.

Friday I racked up at a clothing swap with Meg, Sarah, Stacy, Amanda, Chris, and Tracy. It was a lot of fun, I really love Stacy's house, and it was great to go have fun with them. Michael and Jeremy watched Watchmen, which I'll have to watch on my own now, but c'est la vie. Yesterday, we went for Wade and Iggy's birthday dinner with our new second family, and then on to Iggy and Wade's to stomp muscadines for wine!

The pictures loaded in reverse order, but here are a few!

The grapes post-stomping-- tasty!

I'm wearing that stylish t-shirt because Violet puked all over me-- twice!

This is what 41 pounds of Muscadines looks like!

Violet loves Jeremy! Not that we're surprised :)

Leapin' Lizards!

Pictures of Julian's 3rd Birthday Party-- we got there a little late because we had to pick up the pizza, but we still had fun!

One of those days...

It's strange, I never really have those days where I sit down and look at my life and think, "Man, this isn't all that bad after all!" but today I kinda did. Work's been getting me down lately, as I'm sure you could tell, but I'm glad I had a good night tonight-- I could sit down and look at my photos from this weekend with a clear head and realize that I'm really lucky to have the life I do.

Living in Decatur is an absolute privilege, one I hope to give my child/ren some day, and one of the things its given me is access to a strong learning community and one that appreciates literature. Two of my favorite authors, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, came to the Decatur Public Library this weekend, and Jeremy got to go with me. They write popular novels, but are both very intelligent, very funny, and very witty. Their talk was great and then they signed books and took pictures!

This one's a little blurry, Jeremy was holding the camera weird, but from L to R is Lincoln Child, me, and Douglas Preston! I've been reading Preston's books since I was in middle school!!

After that, we walked around the square and looked at the artists booths, and we stopped in this great little shop called Taste on the back side of the square. LOVE that store so much. If you're local, you can get me a gift certificate there any time!! We poked around there a little extra because it started *pouring* down rain and we didn't have an umbrella, but Jeremy found some yummy chow chow to take back for his sandwiches and I found the most hilarious card to send to Shelby-- a print of Barack taking his presidential oath with the caption, "I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear to turn this mother out."

We wandered back to the car, and since I hadn't been able to get in touch with Meg or Michael, I decided we'd "swing by" (shoulda known better!) before going home to take a nap. We got there and Michael was hanging out with Sarah (a girl Meg and I went to high school with, but I haven't seen in who knows how many years!) and trying to get Vi to sleep and Julian was running around... being Julian. He took to Jeremy like nobody's business (not surprising, kids LOVE Jeremy) and took him on the grand tour of Casa de Julian and the costumes in his closet and all his toys. We fed Julian Altoids to see his reaction and he actually liked them, then he attacked Michael like a wild man, then he decided he was going to play with Jeremy some more and continued to use him as a jungle gym. Meg and I decided he's going to be one of those grandads all the little ones use as a jungle gym whether he's actively participating or not. Then we walked up to dinner and met Meg's mom and her sister Della-- The Matador in Oakhurst was pretty decent, and not too expensive. It waited until we got inside to start raining and didn't rain on us on the way home.

Today, I went up to Apres Diem for lunch and to see Adam and Erin in from Seattle. There were, of course, tons of other people there for fantastic company and the food was to die for-- and totally one-upped Fresh Slices which is a little funny. Apres Diem is a chic type tapas place in Midtown Atlanta, and their sandwiches range from about $8-10. With these sandwiches come a side salad AND home fries, whereas at Fresh Slices you don't necissarily get fries, even! Anyway, I got to see Aihanh and Igal, and Greg was there with his new girlfriend, and Hetal and Hugh and some other Tech people I vaguely know. Erin was asking about where Jeremy and I would be when he was done with school and it turns out... they have a house they're trying to rent! It's a three bedroom, soon to be two bath, and while it's not in the bestest area ever, we could get it for about $900 a month! And since we'd know the landlords, we could probably do most anything we like to the house which would keep Jeremy busy and would be at least half funded so we could afford to do it! Yaaay!

So, uploading those pictures to Facebook and Flickr, I looked at my life and realized that there are some really amazing people in my life-- I have a fiancee I love and sometimes still can't believe, there are a couple of pretty cute kids who think I'm swell and I love them to death, I'm re-acquainting myself with friends from high school who are wonderful people, and I feel kind of like I'm a part of a big family here, which is what's so great about Decatur in the first place. We'll be a little farther away, about 20 minutes, if we're at Adam and Erin's place, but we'll still be ITP and we'll have room for folks to stay the night which they just might.

Memphis was where I lived for five years, and I think I almost forgot what home meant while I was there. Now, I'm remembering it and I couldn't be happier.

Ciao for now.

Family Tree

So I'm up late (which is bad since I've been pretty good this week) because I've gotten sucked in to my mother's side of the family tree. My father's side is pretty cool, too, but I think that when you have some badass Southern women in your family, you really can't go wrong. There are also some really awesome names, for example:

My father's grandmother (Rebecca, for whom I am named)- Arvazena (middle name)
My father's aunt- Gazell
My mother's grandmother (Flora, for whom I would like to name my daughter)- Anzilly
My mother's grandfather (Flora's husband)- Tullious
My granny- Marjorie Mavorette (named for a French actress who died, Mimaw saw it in the paper and thought it was pretty)
Flora's sisters- Hettie, Minnie Leota
Flora's stepmother- Stella
Mom's dad- Leo (middle name)
Granny's sister- Maureen. I was to be named for Maureen, but my granny and mimaw and all the others were convinced it would bring bad luck-- Maureen died when she was two of influenza (1927-1929)
Mom's aunts- Della, Zelma Dean
Mom's other assorted aunts- Gussie Vera, Myra Nell, Eva Pearl, Hautie Ardilla
Mom's other assorted uncles- Theopholis Wahtheu, Byron

I know my extended family tree isn't all that interesting to everyone, but I just thought those were some really awesome names. Now I'm never going to figure out what to name my daughter-- guess I'll have to have two :P

The database I used is pretty cool, the Edenfield Database, and very well researched. I have a few blanks to fill in for them, and I'm actually going to help because they're really involved!

I was telling Krystal earlier that my favorite story is actually about Rebecca, my father's grandmother. She was Native American, her grandfather (I believe) being the chief of the Creek Nation Tribe in Colbert County (named for him, Chief Colbert) and when her husband died and she was left with a whole mess of children (six or seven? my aunt Gazell being the youngest), the state of Alabama declared that she couldn't own land because she was Native American. She camped out near her property and when the corn was ripe, she took the children and they harvested all the corn and walked to Memphis. That's right, walked. That's somewhere between 150-200 miles.

Speaking of Memphis, my Aunt Gazell was named when her father went to the Memphis Zoo and saw a Gazelle-- he asked a keeper the name of (in his opinion) the prettiest animal there and was told "That there's a gay-zell" so he went home and spelled it best he could and her name is pronounced "gay-zell".

OK, I'm going to stop boring you with my family stories and try to hit the hay-- lots of stuff to get out of storage tomorrow and then Jeremy on Saturday! Huzzah!!