16 Reasons

Anthony turns 16 today! I can't believe it. Half the time I still picture him as a 9-year-old. He loves that. This will be the first time since the day he was born that I will not be with him for his birthday. He's still in Alabama visiting our family down there. It bums me out a little bit, but he'll be back this weekend, so I'll make up for it then.

Since I still wanted him to have something from me on his birthday, I decided to write him a letter and tell him 16 Reasons I think he's awesome.

1. He's kind.
2. He's funny. He has fantastic, if not unintentional, comedic timing.
3. He makes brave hair choices. This kid recently colored his bangs purple... which then faded to some weird blond/fuchsia combination. And he just rocked it like it was on purpose. #pinkhairdontcare
4. He's super creative.
5. He has great taste in music... mostly. I have an odd sense of pride hearing him listen to songs I loved in high school/college. But every once in a while he throws some weird wrench in there.  
6. He is incredibly smart. Too smart for his own good at times, but still.
7. He's laid back. It takes a lot to ruffle his feathers, which is insane when you realized he grew up with a powder keg.
8. He can be really helpful.
9. He likes to try new food. He is one of my few sushi buddies. Lord love him
10. He's fun to hang out with.
11. He's got an interesting view on the world. He definitely sees things differently than I do, which is not a bad thing!
12. He has more confidence in me than I do. I used to make his birthday cakes every year. At first it was simple, but eventually there was Spider-Man, an aquarium, and a dragon. I called it quits before I had to figure out how to make a working Ferris wheel.
13. He likes to have adventures.
14. He's forgiving. Remember that powder keg he grew up with? Poor kid definitely got caught in the fallout more than he deserved. But he loves me anyway.
15. He likes to learn new tasks. He may never use them, but he'll look stuff up just to know it. Kind of cool, really.
16. He's committed. When he was little, he would pick what he wanted to be for Halloween next year on November 1, and he would not be swayed. One time he decided to be a vampire and refused to eat garlic for a solid year.

Obviously, there are more than 16 things I love about him, but it was fun to sit down an think about the reasons he's a great kid.

This is a collection of all the photos I shared
online for his birthday. It was fun. :-D

Family Weekend: Days 2 and 3

I woke up early Saturday morning! Like early even by EST standards! I think I woke up at 5:30 CST. It was nice though. I had a little bit of peace and quiet while I ate and did some work on my laptop.

I enjoyed my coffee and a French Toast bagel with blueberry cream cheese. For some reason, my grandmother had 2 tubs of blueberry cream cheese and no regular cream cheese. I just went with it, and am I glad I did! It reminded me of blueberry stuffed french toast. I may never go back.
[Side note: does anyone else have a cup/plate/dish they gravitate towards at someone else's house? I don't know why, but I almost always use that poppy mug when I go to Mimi's she has umpteen thousand mugs, but it's my favorite. Mom's is a navy blue one with the South Carolina logo on it. Maybe my family is just weird. :-)]

Anyway, after breakfast we just milled around and watched football. My grandmother is a tried and true Bama fan, so we had to watch that (and not talk to her). Brittany, Anthony, and I ran to the store because Bee need to make a copy of a photo for Mom and Mimi. While we were there I decided to print off some pictures of me and Greg for Mimi. She's always fussing at me that she doesn't have any recent pictures of me (it's true), so I printed off the most recent ones I had and told her to pick one. 

After that it was time for pictures! I did not realize it, but I had not seen Bee in 4 years! And I think the most recent picture of us was from 5 or 6 years ago. Absolutely ridiculous!

She's grown up so much, and I am so incredibly proud of her. But that's a post for another time. She also took a few pictures with Anthony, who was getting a little bored with the process. 

Ugh! Let's not discuss how grown up he looks in this picture... except for his Batman hoodie... which I love. The hood has bat ears! Anyway. After all that it was time for dinner! 

I hadn't been to Johnny's before, but everyone in my family raves about it. I must say I was pretty impressed!

Well, except for the coleslaw. It left a little to be desired. Then again, I'm totally in love with Popeye's coleslaw, and not much can measure up. After dinner, Britt had to head back to Birmingham, and the rest of us went back to Mimi's. I crashed pretty soon after. 

Sunday was actually Mom and Mimi's birthday. We had already done the gifts and things so Mom and I made breakfast for everyone and my aunt brought over Mimi's birthday pound cake (it's what she wanted). Not too long after that, we headed home. The drive wasn't too eventful until we hit Chattanooga. I swear I saw at least 7 police cars in just a few miles of interstate. It was weird! But we made it home without incident. 

After we unpacked the car, we took one last trip in the rental to go out to dinner for mom's birthday. Apparently she hadn't gotten her BBQ fix, because she wanted to go to Famous Dave's. Hey, who am I to deny my mother on her birthday? Plus, they have quirky wet wipes. 

I'm not sure what Picnic-Fresh BBQ should smell like, but it got my hands clean! 

Our trip was over too soon, but I'm glad to be back home. I would rather leave too soon than wait til we're all sick of each other. :-)

Family weekend: Day 1

Hello from Alabama! Yes, that is correct. I managed not only to get out of Knoxville, but all the way out of the state! First time in over a year. Crazy! What am I doing in Alabama you ask? Well, everyone's birthday was coming up (I'm only barely kidding, but we'll get to that in a second), so we drove down for a visit. And if I'm taking a road trip, I'm not taking my car so...

Enter the rental car! I get to pretend I own a 2013 Toyota Corolla for the weekend. It's a nice little car, and way nicer than mine, but I don't think I'd buy one for reals. Fun for this trip though!

It's about a three four hour drive from my house to Mimi's house. I normally make the trip in a straight shot, only stopping for gas, but we were trying to take our time since Mimi had a hair/nail appointment booked for today [insert jealousy], so we planned a rest area picnic to break it up.

I will admit it was nice to get out and walk around for a minute. My back was a little sore today, so it was probably good for me to get out and stretch a bit.

After lunch, we got back in the car and made the rest of the trip without incident. I used to drive down here so much I could probably find it with my eyes closed. It has been 4 years since the last time I was here, so I got a little foggy once I got to Mimi's county. Tony's taken the trip almost twice as much as I have, so any time couldn't quite remember where I was supposed to turn, he'd pipe up with exact directions including landmarks. He's learned well.

 When we arrived, the dogs were happy to see us. And by the dogs, I mean Bubber (pronounced Bubba), the Poodle/Maltese mix.

He would bring each of us the ball and wait for us the throw it. Except that about 75% of the time he'd grab it as you would pick it up and wouldn't let go. If you let go of the ball, he'd tap you with it. Basically, he couldn't decide if he wanted to play fetch or tug of war. I wish I could have gotten video of it because it was pretty funny. Maybe tomorrow. Molly on the other hand is the total opposite. 

She sat right there for most of the day. When someone can to sit down, she'd crawl onto the couch part so they could pet her. Other than that I would have forgotten she was here.

My oldest niece, Brittany, arrived about an hour after we did. Thank goodness, because Tony practically had his nose pressed to the door waiting for her to arrive. As much as I love my brother, John, Tony loves his Brittany... and I just realized I didn't get a picture of any people. Ha! Tomorrow.

Anyway, after visiting for a few minutes, Bee (everyone has a nickname) said she couldn't wait any longer and handed me a gift bag. She said it was just because we hadn't seen each other in a long time (which is quite sad and quite true). Can I just tell you that my genius of a niece nailed me in 3 presents?

Owls, a watch, and the Wizard of Oz? Yeah, that's pretty much me in a bag. Then she gave Tony a few things (some glow sticks, an awesome light-up travel cup, and food). At that point we decided that everybody would get presents!

 

Mom and Mimi share a birthday on October 6, and Brittany's birthday is October 16. In addition, I have friends/family with birthdays on the 1, 2, 5, 10, 12, 19, 21, and 28 of this month. I told you everyone's birthday was coming up. 

After our mini-Christmas, we had dinner. Later my aunt Sara came over with a birthday cake for my mom. 

She said she put representative candles on there (my mom will be 60 on Sunday), which my mom got appreciated. She said she didn't know if she had the lungs for all of her candles. The cake was a mandarin orange and pineapple cake and it was delicious! I'll have to see if I can get Aunt Sara to give me the recipe. 

Finally, it was time for me to got to bed in my cupboard in the bathroom.

Still bigger than in NYC

For the record, that closet is huge! I'm not quite sure how the tradition got started, but I have always slept in the bathroom closet when I visit my grandmother in Alabama. Yes. That's the closet inside the guest bathroom. Yeah, let that sink in. Anyway, it's nice and cozy. Now, I'm going to get some sleep! 

Oh, my, it's already July?

I've been a bad blogger lately, and I am truly sorry. Things have just been goofy lately, and any time I sit down to blog I can't seem to form coherent thoughts. There have even been days when I didn't get on the computer at all. I know, the shame.  Please forgive me, loves. 

---

June was a crazy month filled with stress and sadness and drama. Between my oldest brother moving to Texas, random dramas at work and with friends, and a few weeks work of nightmares, I'm glad to see it over! I had more headaches, outbursts, and breakdowns last month than the previous 5 combined. Sheesh!

That being said, I cannot believe that it's already JULY! Tony Baloney's birthday is 2 weeks! And he leaves for camp in 9 days. I'll have to get started writing his notes from home for this year. I'm not sure what the theme for camp is this year, but I can wing it. :-) I'm going to try to make July a little better than June (if I could hold off on the nightmares, that'd be great). I'm also hoping to fit in more adventures. 

---

Does anyone else have that one question you seem to get asked a lot? One that you can't seem to go more than a few months without hearing? My number one used to be "so... what are you, exactly?" They meant my ethnicity, but I usually responded with "a girl," "tall," or "mostly human." Oh, and apparently "sarcastic." I think it was the exactly that got to me. Who knows what they are "exactly?" It's very existential for a 7 year old. Anyway! Lately I keep hearing "why do you wear your watch like that?" If you ever see me take a picture of my watch, it will look like this:

Watch face = back of hand

But that's only because it's easier to take the picture that way. This is how I actually wear it:

Watch face = palm

And lately people keep asking me why I wear my watch "upside down." The short answer is "because my Mimi does." I've done it since I was a kid. I was maybe 10 years old. One day I noticed that my grandmother was wearing her watch like that, and I decided that's how I would wear my watch, too. I didn't know why she was wearing it that way, but it didn't matter. Mimi was (and still is) someone I greatly admired, so if she wore her watch like that then by golly so would I. And now it's just the way I wear it. If actually feels uncomfortable for me to wear it the "right" way. Occasionally, I'll spin it around if I'm typing or something else where I don't want to scratch the face, but I find that more annoying so I usually just take it off. 

[Side Note: Yes, I do have a thing for watches. I have several in various colors. At the moment I have them in white, bright pink, orange, tennis ball yellow, aqua, emerald, purple, white leather, brown leather, and red. I'm still on the hunt for a black and a silver that I like.]

---

For the record, my mom is Welsh/Irish with a trace of Native American, and my dad is African American.