The Photo Friday throwback continues!

May 8, 2015May 7, 2015Leave a comment

IMG_20150507_0001 Today’s photo features me as a teenager. Well, I’m in there somewhere – see that little speck of purple? That’d be me. 🙂

Way back when, my friends and I had lots of fun shooting roll after roll of film on my little point-and-shoot camera. I have so many great photos from my teen years! What I love about this one is the color – just look at all those greens!

Don’t forget to stop by Charnele’s blog and see what she’s got for today.

What did you enjoy doing with your friends in your younger years?

Photo 365 #271

May 5, 2015May 5, 2015Leave a comment

Miss Birdie and me. 🙂
Photo by Seymour

Well! Now that I’ve had a good night’s sleep, I’m feeling a little more with it today (but only a little bit because, once again, I’m being plagued with headaches and hoping they sort themselves out sooner rather than later). So, about my fun-but-exhausting weekend…

Saturday we spent the better part of the day picking up sticks and pine cones so that Seymour could mow the lawn after work. We have a couple acres and a lot of trees, so it took for-freaking-ever. We were out there till well after dark, and it stormed Saturday night and Sunday morning, so now all the sticks we picked up are once more littering the yard. *sigh* This was the first time we’ve mowed lawn this year, and it badly needed cutting.

Sunday we headed south for my goddaughter, Birdie’s, baptism. I hadn’t yet seen Miss Birdie, even though she’s five weeks old, and I may or may not have monopolized the baby-holding.

*whistles innocently*

Photo 365 #267

May 1, 20156 Comments

dandy Dandelions are such happy flowers. When I was little, I loved picking dandelion bouquets for my parents. Despite their weedy status, I loved them. As a matter of fact, I still do, even though they’re threatening to take over my yard.

But really, is there any sight quite as joyful as a field of dandelions? If there is, I’d like to see it.

It must be the color. Yellow is such a happy color, and after a long winter, dandelions are like little spots of sunshine appearing to remind us all that there’s more to life than snow and gray and endless cold. Dandelions are symbols of hope, and Suzanne Collins wasn’t the first to think so.

Anyway, Thumper and Cricket are enamored with dandelions at the moment, and it’s got me thinking about childhood and wonder and seeing the magic in the everyday. Yesterday, Thumper picked a dandelion bouquet for me, and it graced the table till well after supper, even though the blooms had closed up by then. I just hadn’t the heart to throw them out. He took so much joy in picking those bright little flowers and then carting them all over the yard – they were his new best friends. They climbed trees together, they chased cats together, they ran themselves ragged together.

I don’t have a whole lot to add to that at the moment; I’m too brain-dead to come up with a decent ending to this post. Brain-deadness has become my new best friend, and it’s one I could really do without. Hopefully the solution to this problem is right around the corner.

In the meantime, may your weekend be filled sunshine, whether in the sky or in the ground. Have a great one!

A word to the wise, part 5

May 1, 2015December 31, 2014Leave a comment

This is where having wacky friends can really save the show!

Sometimes my life is only one tent away from a full-blown circus. –Suzy Toronto

Photo Friday: Engaging!

April 17, 2015April 17, 20151 Comment

After last week’s throwback post about my first date with Seymour, I thought I’d share a little about our engagement. It, too, is a fun story, and one I love telling. 🙂

Greg&Me Seymour proposed on December 23, 2008, which happened to be my grandpa and step-grandma’s fifth wedding anniversary. He had just died three months prior, so it was rather a sad day for her. But not for me – I was anxiously awaiting the end of the day so I could get all gussied up for the ROTC military ball in a neighboring town.

I got my hair done after work, then hurried home to put on my beautiful black formal dress (complete with black gloves, pink wrap, and pretty tiara). When I came downstairs looking all pretty (and feeling it, too), Seymour gave me a beautiful corsage of purple carnations and orchids. Then we left for the ball at the Pipac Centre (fancy schmancy, if you didn’t know).

When we arrived, there were all of six cars in the parking lot. Seymour looked around and said, “That’s not right; there should be fifty or sixty cars here.” He parked the truck and said, “You stay here and I’ll go see what’s going on.”

He came back a few minutes later. “I have some really, really good news: behind the cut!

Photo Friday: Swept off my feet

April 10, 201511 Comments

Today’s throwback is a funny story. Well, I find it funny. I didn’t at the time, of course, but time has a way of changing how you feel about things.

Anyway.

younglove

“As a girl, I dreamed of being swept off my feet by my one true love. And at the age of 24, it finally happened…and he’s never let me forget it.” That’s what it says on my bio page. And it’s completely, one hundred percent, absotively posilutely true.

Back in 2008, my husband and I had our first date (thanks to coincidence and Yahoo! Personals). We met at a nice public place (the local pizza joint) for supper, where I arrived fifteen minutes early and spent the next ten minutes anxiously checking my watch and the door. Seymour walked in about five minutes early and seemed surprised to see me waiting.

We sat down and…

Photo Friday throwback: The late edition

April 4, 20154 Comments

This weekend, man. Talk about busy! I meant to share this last night when I got back from the last fish fry of 2015, but I was so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

Anyway, since it’s Easter weekend, this week’s throwback photo is Easter-themed. It was taken on Easter Sunday in 1991 at my aunt’s house, right after my sister, my cousin, and I had finished our Easter egg hunt. My aunt must have been the one who took this picture because my grandparents and my mom are all sitting on the steps with us (along with my cousin’s grandpa). My mom and my grandpa were huge photography buffs, as is my aunt, so family get-togethers when I was growing up involved many, many pictures. And if we were getting together with my great-aunt and her family? More cameras.

You can see where I get my shutterbug-ism from. 🙂

Did you hunt Easter eggs when you were a kid?

A word to the wise, part 4

April 1, 2015December 31, 2014Leave a comment

Light up the day with your mojo!

Eat sunshine for breakfast. –Suzy Toronto

Photo Friday besties edition, round 3

March 27, 2015March 27, 20155 Comments

This week’s throwback is from my senior year of high school. I find it hard to believe that this picture is thirteen years old, but the date stamp in the bottom corner doesn’t lie.

Or does it? 😛

You couldn’t beat the Rollerdrome for a good time.

This girl, y’all. We’ve been best friends since kindergarten. Whatever life throws at us, we get through it together. She’s the kind of friend you don’t find often, and ours is the kind of friendship that you hold onto with both hands and don’t let go of.

So here’s to another twenty-six years of being best friends. And may our kids have the kind of relationship that our moms had and that we have, because that would just be awesome. 🙂

How long have you been friends with your best pal? Do you have any lifelong friends?

Don’t forget to check out Charnele’s throwback post!

Photo Friday: The door throwback

March 20, 2015March 20, 20157 Comments

I don’t know why, but I just love pictures of kids and doors:

“I wonder what’s in here…”

“I’m goin’ in, Mom…”

Maybe it’s because my sons love to explore (particularly where and when they shouldn’t). Maybe it’s because it’s a fantastic reminder that to a child, everything is new and different and somehow magical, which is something that adults often seem to forget. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of the magic I used to see in the world, and that the magic still exists if I’d just take the time to look for it.

I don’t know about you, but I could use a little magic at the moment.

What reminds you to seek the magic in your own life?

Have a great weekend, everybody, and don’t forget to check out Charnele’s throwback post!