some questions lately

i've had some interesting questions posed to me lately. ones that at first just seemed like easy answers, no biggies. but the more i think about them the more i have to say about them and so i thought i'd put them here. ya know, my blog. the one that used to be filled with this sort of thing until i started using it simply as a what-we-did-in-not-very-much-detail-but-with-pictures-to-fill-in-the-blanks-sort-of-journal-of-days.

and that brings me to one of the questions. ren asked on my last blog post in the comments section about how i could remember all these things with the dates and such. well, i don't. that's the short answer. the truth is that when i sit down to write a long post like that i grab the calendar and my checkbook. and i open up kodak easyshare. with these three things i reassemble the events that have taken place in however long it's been since i last blogged. i do this because i want to get this stuff down to have something to look back on. and i need things to help me remember it all. my calendar has all sorts of stuff written down on it. then i match it up with my checkbook which will usually have something on the same date that will spur more memories of what happened on a particular day. and add that to the pictures and i can pretty much put down some semblance of what we've done.

but herein lies a problem. and this is the thing that got me thinking about this needing to be a blog post. what about the moments, whole days when nothing is planned (therefore not written down on the calendar), where i don't take any pictures, or go anywhere and spend money that might be recorded in my checkbook?? what then? what about those lost moments?? well, they're lost. end of story. that's how my memory is. i sometimes think about that on quiet homey days when the kids are doing their own things and i just get to sit and watch them and enjoy being in the moment. i think...i need to go get the camera!! sometimes i do. but more often, i don't. i don't want to interrupt the naturalness of that moment by turning it into something i need to document. and although i love documenting things, i hold back. sometimes.

awhile back i started thinking about childhood memories. how i love taking pictures so that i will be able to remember things. so my kids will one day be able to recall the events that made up their childhoods. it got so bad that i wanted to document every single moment. then i had this startling thought: what if, even though you don't remember something, it still makes up big chunks and pieces of who you are. well duh!! ever heard of suppressed childhood memories laura??? of course...i've got tons of them...don't recall but a handful of memories of my childhood. but i'd always thought of that sort of thing in regards to the bad stuff. how even not remembering it can have deep and lasting effects. so what about the wonderful times. the tiny moments of pure joy and simplicity of being a child. of being happy. regardless of whether or not anyone remembers it. it is a piece of the puzzle. my kids have tons of happy (and i'm sure not so happy) pieces of their puzzle inside of them that they probably don't even remember. but it makes up who they are. i'm not doing a very good job of describing this moment of clarity i had. but it was so huge for me. that all the little good stuff doesn't have to be remembered forevermore to be a part of who we are. did i go in enough circles with that for ya??

so that's that. i try to keep track of the bigger events in our lives. but the small, quiet ones, i've learned to just soak up in the moment...and know that regardless of my memory it is building a happy nest inside of me. inside of my kids. and sometimes...i simply facebook about them!!! ha ha ha ha ha (that's hysterical laughter in case you didn't know). no pictures necessary.

i've got to get ready for park day now. so the second big question i was going to talk about will have to wait until tomorrow!!

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summing up summer

forgive me father for i have sinned...it has been almost 2 months since my last blog post.

the last day i blogged about was LND which was july 24th!!! holy crap!!

the next day we just sort of hung out at our house, and the day after that too...

saturday, july 25th starts out on the porch...

and then inside for some bananagrams!!

sunday, july 26th...porch time again

some random elbow licking

a little peek-a-boo

and snacks for the ride home

i can find no evidence of the existence of monday. but i'm pretty sure scotty went for a ride and then we went out by ourselves for the afternoon and ate lunch at atlanta bread company.

tuesday, july 28th...sofh picnic day at the nolichucky river!!! had an awesome time with new and old friends alike!!

jana and puppy

isn't it gorgeous!?

loverly mamas

creepy spider!!!

wednesday, july 29th...we met up with jana to check out the paint supplies at artopia. samuel got a few things and then the kids and i went to DQ for a quick treat before we headed out to rock creek again...to paint jana's bus!!! i had never used spray paint like this before...i am NOT a graffiti artist. i really loved the montana paint though!!

all these pix were taken by sadie

afterwards we all went to pizza hut and ate...cuz we were super hungry!! painting and dancing and talking and laughing make for a big appetite.

thursday, july 30th the kids and i went to atlanta bread company for lunch and then the library and then off to ren's house to play some more with jana and her boys and eat and talk and laugh and paint toenails.

friday, july 31st we met up with ren and jana in jonesborough for MOTS. jana got a t-shirt for coming the farthest (from california).

saturday, august 1st, karina and taylor came over for the day to hang out. we went grocery shopping and frightened all the innocent people with our craziness!!

sunday was a redbox movie night...journey to the center of the earth and watchmen.

monday was going to be a blueberry picking day with ren and family...but they were all picked clean (glad i called before we left). so we made it another river day and met up with jana and family again. afterwards, scotty joined us all (minus ren and jalen who had other plans) at el torito's for supper. yum!

tuesday, august 4th was my sister's 40th birthday. she lives in knoxville so we all (my parents and my other sisters and their families) drove there to surprise her. it was an amazing surprise that was all planned by her daughter. when we all walked in, my sister just cried. it was really beautiful to be there in that moment when she needed us most.

thursday, august 6th was hangout day with sofh at carver park. we did some planning while the kids played on the playground and inside (i think they were playing a lot of chess that day). i went home with 4 extra kids, sierra, jalen, karina, and taylor. i'm so blessed!! i did not have to actually birth all of the children i wanted to have (i think i had wanted 5 or 6) and yet i have them!

friday, august 7th...FIRST FRIDAY!! alice, rachel, and jake came up from asheville to go with us. also, deanna, ren, jana, jess, & barb were all there...hope i didn't leave anyone out!! as usual, there was art, music, and dancing!! AND some amazing fresh donuts being fried and glazed right on the spot...these things were HUGE and only 1.50 each. i keep hoping they'll come back again!! the boys found pleasure in going around to the bars asking for diet water and getting kicked out. oh those wacky unschoolers!!

saturday, august 8th...we had a big sleepover with iris, audrey, and nesta!! us mommas finally got it worked out after promising them for awhile. silas and nesta stayed up ALL NIGHT!! the girls made some cool shirts that sierra had showed sadie how to make!!

sunday, august 9th...i finished up a painting that had been sitting undone for years!

silas finally went to bed for awhile to get some rest as we had a trip planned for later to go to rocky mount for the blacksmithing demonstration. he did not want to get up and so we almost didn't go but then he got up and we met with deanna and doug to drop off the kids before heading to the demo.

the girls sporting their new outfits!!

the kids were hungry so we hit pal's on the way to rocky mount. always hot and delicious!!

one of the blacksmithers in action

silas had been wanting to learn more about blacksmithing and this was our first attempt at getting him some exposure to it. he was so tired and it was so hot that it was hard for him to enjoy it fully. maybe another time. still, he seemed pretty glad we went. we finished up our giant pal's teas so we could get ourselves awake and ready to go to my sister's house at 5 o'clock for my nephew's 14th birthday celebration!!

video gaming

some tickling

hanging out

playing the settlers of catan

monday, august 10th was scotty's day off so we walked around downtown, ate at unique treasures for lunch and then went to artopia for some art supplies. later we went to verizon for hours and hours and hours to get our 2 year free phone upgrade and a new line for scotty. we had planned to head home for supper but at this point we were tired and neither of us felt like cooking so we went to the mall food court!! then we hit the redbox and picked up a couple movies for later: coraline and the day the earth stood still.

tuesday was another movie day with 17 again and gigantic

wednesday i worked in the garden a bit...but realized just how much i FAILED at it this year. still learning so much!!

thursday, august 13th...DAIRY QUEEN MIRACLE TREAT DAY, we met up at DQ with ren, jess, deanna, barb, and jana and their families to support the children's miracle network by buying blizzards. oh the hard things we do!! it was also tyler's birthday!!

friday, wes came by to show samuel his new guitar.

saturday, august 15th we went to the mall to pick out some video games for my nephew's 11th birthday and then ate at petro's in the food court...yum...gas...yum. we get the vegetarian chili on our taco salad. sometimes they accidentally give you the meat chili so the kids usually ask me to check it because i know what meat looks like and what tvp looks like. samuel said that he didn't care if he got meat because even though he didn't want to eat meat, he would rather eat it because he knew that if he took it back it would just get thrown away and that was just too wasteful and also wasted of part of that animal's life. wow. i didn't know he felt that way. i think that's a pretty awesome way to look at it. i have no pictures of the birthday party but i do have this one that i took earlier that day:

my kids are weird

saturday, august 16th...asheville time again!! we headed to the wechgelaer's house for a little hanging out, games, talking, lauging and eating...and some downtown action. it was also jess' birthday!!!

sadie and sierra learn how to use the serger and make some really cool stuff

some gaming

talking and hanging in the kitchen

samuel using his powers to stack oranges

success!

a little twister

and computer time...probably watching funny youtube videos!!

crash time!!

the next day we went downtown to walk around and soak up those amazing asheville vibes!! we ate at the delicious mellow mushroom which is coming to our very own jc real soon!!! we also went to true blue art store where i found the most amazing caran d' ache oil pastels, which i wrote about somewhere in this post.

this is for tyler!!! your very own building!!!

what an amazing mural...so much color and shape and yumminess...hey, we match it!!!

a very cool tall bike!! we talked to the guy who made it, he was pretty cool too!!

you can imagine my excitement when i saw these amazing paintings!!!

and this amazing sign!!! asheville has the best galleries!

samuel took a picture of this flyer

snack time at malaprop's

some dancing outside the bookstore

jalen in the red wagon! his poor little foot was too sore for walking!

music outside the bookstore

rested up for a few days and then on wednesday i started working on a piece using my new oil pastels!!

thursday, august 20th...sofh at carver...i have no memory of this day!! was this the day the kids played in the creek all day or was that the next park day?? oh my!!

friday, august 21st...headed to georgia to spend the weekend with the traaseths!! it was the last weekend of the monet exhibit at the high museum in atlanta and they invited us to join them.

kyra showing samuel how to play a song

that big ball is super fun!!!

well, as it turned out only 4 of us went to the museum, everyone else hung out back at the house.

sadie's first ride on the metro!!

there was some really awesome artwork in the tunnels of the metro (actually i think it's called something else???)

atlanta has some really really really tall buildings! we took a wrong turn coming out of the metro but it was worth it because there was a beautiful park and these amazing buildings!!

sadie and monet

sadie and abbi sitting on a chair/table wood sculpture thingy

i took this before the guy told me there was no digital photgraphy allowed, but...

you can take pictures with a camera phone. little did he know that my camera phone would take a better picture!!

more art in the tunnels

waiting for the train

talking on the phone with scotty...i couldn't hear anything!!

again with the mural art

doing some wowing together...i think

rock band??

monday, august 24th...on the way home, i had to stop at this overlook. it's the tallulah gorge!!

do not puke, do not puke, do not puke

we got home around supper time AND scotty was home so we went out to barberito's and ate out on the patio in the almost rain. it was a good ending to our weekend.

tuesday, august 25th...one night of rest and it was time for the picnic day with sofh at the splashpad in kinsport. i was really happy to see so many people show up!! what an awesome place! jc needs one of these...there are rumors that carver will put one in next year!! when the kids were all done with the park, we went to hobby lobby...which is like michael's but with more home decor stuff. i found an awesome quilting magazine that really inspired me...so i had to get it. i've since been working on painted and quilted fabric. more on that later. then the kids and i went to the thrift store. and then home to rest...FINALLY!!

the scariest park equipment ever!!!!

see, they come with warnings! remember how they took out all the "old" equipment because it wasn't safe???

silas and colin have a "pee" war

mmmm that new baby smell

and then there's lots of gratuitous water splashing...just for you ren!!

just us IRLS!

thursday, i took my sewing machine in to be repaired...determined to do this cool quilting thing!! worked on several pieces and then it was off to ren's house for imagination tribe!!

friday was a quiet day, it was also my parents' anniversary and my niece's birthday. we got redbox movies that were supposed to be comedies but really they were not! sunshine cleaning and adventureland.

saturday we went to the library and then to ruby tuesday's where samuel bumped the overhanging lamp shade and it fell down onto our table. it was not securely anchored. only damage was spilled water. but still, i want a free something or other. oh well. then lots of shopping for groceries and such.

sunday i finally picked one of our watermelon. okay, it actually sort of got pulled up accidentally, but it was good, and sweet and had a nice texture. i went to a drawing session with a live model at the tattoo/art gallery downtown. it was a huge reminder that i need to brush up on my figure drawing. later, we got some chips and redbox movies, i love you, man and labor pains.

monday, august 31st...was scotty's day off, we went for a walk and then to jason's deli for supper.

well that's all i can remember of august. september shouldn't be too hard to remember, right???

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