NaBloPoMo Post #3
Not What I Meant to Write
I had a post all planned out in my head for today but kept putting it off. I thought I would have a bit of time this evening to compose it properly. But then our daughter sat down with us to chat about work, and the three of us ended up sitting together for a solid two hours, just talking. Well we mostly listened, and she did the talking.
And I loved it!
Those who know me and this blog know how close Eler Beth and I are. She tells me everything. She still wants me to go shopping with her because she likes my opinion on the clothes she picks out. How many nineteen-year-olds do you know who do that? She asks my permission or at least my opinion before she spends her money that she has earned on something, and when I say, "It's your money, darlin'." She says, "I know, but I just wanted to know if you think I should use for it this."
And she talks to me a lot. But usually Thomas is working long hours, or their schedules don't mesh, and he ends up getting what she has to say secondhand from me. But with him being off work for a few weeks while his thumb heals, he's getting more opportunities to hear about her life firsthand. That's what happened tonight, and it was so much fun. She kept saying, "Sorry, I'm talking so much," or "Sorry I'm keeping you guys up so late." And we hastened to reassure her that we were enjoying just sitting there listening to her talk.
She talked about how much she loves her job, how much confidence she has in Bryant and how well his training is going. She talked about her pets, her friends, her friends' pets. She talked about why she definitely doesn't want to marry young or even get involved with anyone right now. We heard about her goals for the next few years. We heard about everything.
So I'm not going to try to make the post I was going to make today because I really am tired and ready for bed, and that post is going to take a bit more brain cells than I have available right now.
The name I chose for this post is appropriate in two ways. It isn't the post I had planned, and it is about the child who wasn't planned. Andrew was planned; Eler Beth was a surprise. And she's the best surprise of our lives!
Happy blogging all!
~ ~ Lori
NaBloPoMo Post #2
Let Me Introduce Myself
It has occurred to me that since I am cross posting on Blogher I might have some visitors to this dusty old blog who don't know me. So for my second post I'll do a quick introduction.
I've been blogging since 2005. I started on AOL Journals just for fun, mostly writing about my husband and kids and work. It wasn't long before I had got to know some really nice and talented bloggers with whom I still keep in touch. I was part of a blogging community we called J-Land (Journal Land). We have watched each others kids grow up, shared in good times and bad, said tearful goodbyes to some online friends who have shuffled off this mortal coil, and essentially become close to people all over the world whom I have never and probably will never meet in real life.
In 2008 AOL let us know that AOL Journals was closing down, and most of us transferred our journals to Blogspot. (See my Archives in my sidebar for the posts made pre-Blogspot.) Not long after that Facebook really exploded and many of us don't blog as often, but have stayed friends on Facebook. I still keep up with some through their blogs, though.
I am 49 with 50 looming on the horizon. My husband Thomas and I have been married 28 years. We live in Southern Indiana, although I was born and raised in Kentucky and he in Alabama. He is black, and I am white. We both come from rather large, very rural families.
Our son Andrew is 26, and our daughter Eler Beth is 19. They are the things I am most proud of in my life! We're hoping to add Andrew's girlfriend Alexandria to the family some day soon. But, shh, I'm not supposed to pressure them....
I have worked for a newspaper as a writer and as a layout artist. I have done a lot of clerical and secretarial work. I have been a proofreader, and I've done some ghostwriting. I became a stay-at-home wife and mother and homeschooling mom in 2007. I miss the home schooling, but, you know, once they graduate they don't like it when you still try to give them lessons....
I stay busy, and this month I've really bitten off a mouthful. I'm doing NaNoWriMo AND NaBloPoMo. I'm sort of hoping it will kick-start me out of a writing rut I've been in lately. I hope to meet some new bloggers out of this also, and if you're visiting my blog for the first time, "Welcome!" And I hope you'll come by again.
I hope everynyan is doing well.
~ ~ Lori
NaBloPoMo Post #1
All The Nyans, Part One:
We call all the little mammals in the house "Nyans," even the fox. "Nyan" is the Japanese word for the sound that a cat makes, and it is also a video which became a meme a few years back.
On days that Eler Beth works I take care of the dogs, cats, and fox, to whatever extent they need until she gets home. That usually involves taking Bryant (her big dog) outside and putting him in the kennel or on a tie-out and feeding him his breakfast if she has to go to work early. That is never a problem. Bryant is such a sweet, good-hearted dog, and he loves his "grandma."
Back in April she fostered two newborn kittens found abandoned on the side of the road. They didn't even have their eyes open. That involved around-the-clock feedings and cleanings and changing of bedding. They were supposed to be only fosters, but all of us became attached -- even Thomas -- so they are now OUR cats. They will never leave. Right after we got them it was time for her to go to Florida to pick up Remiel, the Fennec Fox she had bought. At five weeks old when we picked him up, he was just barely older than the two cats, so they have grown up together.
Then in June she fostered a kitten that a friend had rescued from the floods in our area. She was tiny and bedraggled, skinny, but old enough to eat solid foods. The original plan was to find her a home, but.... Well, she is now one of the Nyans, along with the older two cats and the fox.
So on days when Eler Beth works I will message her on her break and say something like, "Fed Bryant and put him outside for a little while and fed all the Nyans." Of course grandma duties also quite often include playing with and treating Bryant and the Nyans. :)
Now we have three foster kittens, again acquired before their eyes were even open, that absolutely will not stay here when they are old enough to be adopted. We have found a home for one of them already. One of them is a bit sickly and requires more patience in feeding; the two bigger ones take a bottle just fine, but this one has to be fed with a medicine dropper. Their eyes are open now, and they are starting to play. So now the message from me to my daughter when she's on her break is, "Bryant is fed and outside. I've fed all the Nyans, and I fed the babies."
I enjoy doing it, and I love that my daughter has a heart that is never too full to take care of abandoned babies, but I have to admit that I will be ready when this round of bottle feeding comes to a close and these three babies have found their permanent homes somewhere else, much as I love them!
Pictures coming in a future post along with updates. Hope you and yours (and all your nyans) are doing well!
~ ~ Lori
Bottle Feeding Soren and Illyana
I think the title of this post says it all.
I have not blogged since July, and with everything going on in my life right now should I commit to 50,000 words this month? Should I commit to making a blog post every day? I haven't even read any of my friends' blogs in months! I've kept up -- sort of -- on Facebook with J-Land friends, but not the way I probably should have.
I'll commit and give it a try for one week. If it's too much for me to handle, I will bow out gracefully.
“And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish
you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes
that I am, into fire.” ~~ A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Chapter Thirteen
This is just a beautiful, evocative sentence -- "...you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire." Isn't it wonderful when you have or have had someone in your life who can help to make you more than what you feel you already are?
"Though the arts of peace were unknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its shades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes of its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of many a gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the noontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness." ~~ James Fenimore Cooper from The Last of the Mohicans (The Leatherstocking Tales Book 2), Chapter One
I haven't read The Last of the Mohicans in a long time, but it is full of sentences like this one that I particularly like. I don't, however, like all of those superfluous commas in the latter part of the sentence, but I will forgive him. I like the choice of words here and the imagery of "in the noontide of his spirits to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness."
I really must read this book again soon.
My previous post garnered some very nice comments. Paula commented that she grew up with chinaberry trees in her yard and that she played house under one. She pretended to can some of the chinaberries while playing house, and "boy did they stink when we opened them up a few days later." I read the comment to Thomas and his immediate reaction was, "Oh no, you don't want to eat them. You can't eat chinaberries." I asked, "Are they bitter?" He said, "They are BEYOND bitter!" But he knew that she meant they had pretended to can them while playing house. He said, "Anybody from down South would know not to really can or eat them."
Worse than that, apparently they are toxic to humans if eaten in quantity. They are also an invasive species.
Thomas says that after they've fallen off the tree and have lain on the ground for a while, they start turning a yellow-brown and look somewhat like the little sugar plums that they had down there. At least, to a five- or six-year-old Thomas they looked like sugar plums. But he said they taste horrible, bad enough to make you want to vomit, and the taste stays with you all day. He said it is better to bite into a green one than to bite into an over-ripe one. I'll take his word for it and not bite into any type.
When he was about 14, he, his brother Ricky, and several other young boys were playing "war" one afternoon, and Thomas climbed up into the chinaberry tree, sat on a limb, and shot chinaberries at the others with a blow pipe. They couldn't get back at him because if they tried to shoot or throw something up at him, the branches and leaves (thick branches, leaves that can be up to 20 inches long) were so thick that nothing could hit him.
He was definitely winning the game, but suddenly he heard a loud crack, and the limb he was sitting on broke. He said he just sort of rode it down to the ground, with the limbs breaking his fall, so that he didn't hit the ground hard.
The picture above is one I got off Google. Thomas says that the tree they had in their yard was large and thick-leaved like that one.
.
Those who know me and this blog know how close Eler Beth and I are. She tells me everything. She still wants me to go shopping with her because she likes my opinion on the clothes she picks out. How many nineteen-year-olds do you know who do that? She asks my permission or at least my opinion before she spends her money that she has earned on something, and when I say, "It's your money, darlin'." She says, "I know, but I just wanted to know if you think I should use for it this."
