Tracks

 We took some random shots on a short road trip to Talking Rock, Georgia.  Tiny but charming town with stores I liked and a picturesque park with the perfect stream running through it - and some train tracks plus and old train.  The schoolhouse museum was cute, too.  I wonder how there ended up being so many charming towns in North Georgia.  Follow this up with some good southern barbecue, and my day was complete and happy.  Thanks, babe :)

The Target Equation

We just got back from a trip to Target.  I went into the store, knowing that I needed some specific items.  Let me set this up like a formula:  put the things you know on one side of the equal sign, then solve for what you do not know on the other side (this is the variable.)

The things I know:

1.  I will need to buy multiple hair products for all of our multiple hairs.
2.  I will get sucked in to the book section, because for some reason the Target marketing team knows how to appeal to my Mom demographic.  (i.e. a picture of a woman/child from behind, standing on a sandy beach, with a subtitle about strength to move on after tragedy/perseverance in starting her life over/finding a long lost love/discovering a new purpose in life.)  You get the picture, right?
3.  Roxy will be bound and determined to spend all if not most of her allowance.  On mindless plastic crap.
4.  I will talk Roxy out of the plastic crap, then she will move on to the DS game section where she inevitably finds just what she wanted.  Sigh.
5.  Darby will have to visit the rest room.
6.  I will have to send Roxy with Darby so that Darby returns from the restroom, where they will find me reading book jackets in the book section of Target.
7.  Darby will get lost anyway, typically in the make-up section.
8.  Roxy will see someone she knows from school.
9.  I will see someone I know from church.
10.  There will be at least four items in the cart that I had no idea I was going to purchase.

This is the thing I don't know:

x=how much my grand total will be.  (There is no telling what it is when you are buying make-up, that's for sure.)
y=how much time we will waste in this store
So the equation looks like this:

((1+2+3)+(4+5+6)/(7+8+9))*10=x+y

Based on tonight's trip (and every other night's trip, in all honesty), the answer for x is always around $80, including the DS game purchased by Roxy.

As far as y goes, it's usually about an hour.  But I do love this hour with my girls, in my quiet and not-at-all creepy Target.

Another Lady in the House

I am sharing this with the world, much to Scott's chagrin.

There is another lady in the house.

There are already three lovely ladies here, but Scott went out and got another one.

Scott refuses to name her, so I have taken that task upon myself.  Her name is Manda Lin.

I can't tell you how thrilled I am that Scott is learning to play an instrument.  And it is a normal instrument, unlike some of the crazy ones he has looked into lately.  If you don't know what a crazy instrument is, you apparently don't troll YouTube often enough.

So, now my husband is learning how to play this great instrument.  He better learn some Avett Brothers, cuz that would make Momma really happy, too.

Hip to be Square

Scott and I hosted a class party on Sunday - a Four Square picnic and tournament.  We used washable sidewalk paint to make the four square grids, set out a bunch of orange cones to block off our parking lot, and let everyone play.

Most adults did not know how to play four square.  That did not prevent the adults from immediately getting competitive, though.  We started a bracket for a competition and had an overall winner of our Quatro Cup.  It is an enormous trophy with a giant ball on it (reminiscent of a tumor), spray painted by my lovely daughter Darby.  It was a fun evening with lots of kids enjoying just being together, playing four square, then kick ball, then pushing each other around in big wheel bikes.  We found that the best and easiest party could be made by simply painting the pavement and letting the kids run around.  Who knew?

Hen and Chicks

Something interesting about this photo:  Roxy's nametag.  She labels herself "Roxy the Alien."  I don't know why.  It just needs to be documented since she thinks she is from another planet, or another country or whatever.  She labels herself as different and has no problem telling the world about it.  I kind of like that.

The Hubs

My hubs was in Montana this week and accidentally ended up in a photo.  Believe me, it could not have been on purpose because he avoids cameras like they are the plague.

I see various things when I see this photo.  I see my hubs, or my husband.  I see the father of my girls.  I see 16 years of marriage.

But I am posting it because I see gray hair.  I am graying as well, and I am happy to have a hubs that is graying with me.  This rare photo is the first in my recollection where the gray is obvious to the casual observer.  My gray hair is obvious to the professional hair stylist, the makeup artist at the Clinique counter who looks at you under those horrific lights that show every hair and pore magnified 1000 percent, and my gray hair is obvious to those who choose to observe me closely in a mirror.  But the photo of my gray hair does not exist (yet.)  I know it will, and I hope that when I post it, it will only bring a smile to the faces that gaze upon it, like the smile I have on mine when I see his gray hair.  Be proud of your gray, babe.  You are my silver lining :)

Secrets

Can you keep a secret?  Do you guard every minute detail?  The concept of keeping a secret triggers different emotions in people.  With my three year olds at preschool, tell them that they are making a secret present for their momma, and tell them not to tell their momma about the present, and watch the look on their faces.  They don't know how they feel about it.  Some of them love it - they know something momma does not know.  Some of them are already thinking about what they want for a snack and have forgotten that they are actually creating a work of art as a gift for momma.  Some of them are confused as to why they should not tell their momma that they painted some darn cute strawberry pots for their momma.  Why keep a secret?

Roxy is very conflicted about secrets.  She knows that she should keep the secret, because some surprises are good surprises.  Presents are good surprises.  But, keeping secrets goes against her true core - her undying devotion and faithfulness to those she loves.  She cannot reconcile the guilt she feels over hiding a feeling or emotion from someone she trusts with every fiber of her being.  When she commits a sin that is completely out of her character, it eats her up to the point where there is withdrawal, sobbing, and private confession to her momma because she cannot bear to think about disappointing the perfect people in her life (Scott and Darby.)  I am so glad she will confess to me.  I listen and I comfort and I tell her that she must tell Darby and daddy because she can never keep secrets from them and that they love her very much, no matter what the sin.

And keeping something wonderful, something to celebrate from me, well, she feels a polarizing conflict.  Roxy will tell you, "I know something that is a secret, so don't look in my bag or you will find it."  And then she will whisper to Darby, right in front of your face, because keeping a secret from her momma is so hard, she needs fortification from her sister to keep the secret while she makes eye contact with me.

I predict that I will find out what is hidden in that bag first thing in the morning.  Six a.m.  Before I have a chance to go to the bathroom or put on my glasses, or even wake up for that matter.  It is going to kill her to keep this secret until morning.

I recently spilled a secret without realizing it.  It was my husband's secret, and now his sister is bothered that there was a small but happy secret kept from her.  Because of this spilling, my husband is not happy with me.  And his brother is not happy with him because Scott kept the secret from his sister and she found out about it.  Did I mention it was a happy secret?  Somehow this has happened to become a not-so-happy event and it is all my fault.  Great.  In a sarcastic font with a frowny face.

I guess I should not be trusted with secrets.  Roxy, too.  We are not cut out for this business.

Let's Talk About Dar

What can I say about her?  She is an enigma, wrapped up in a conundrum, sprouting lots of tangled corkscrews and perplexing vocabulary words.  I would include a photo, but because the computer is from a region far, far south from here I have no current photos anymore.  Sigh.

Watching her sing a sweet solo with her girls' choir tonight, I found myself wrapped up in a conundrum of an enigma.  How did we get this far?  How did she learn to sing so well?  Where did she get the ability to make speeches in public, like she showed us on Wednesday night?  I have no clue and no contribution to these gifts, other than I picked out that cute top she was wearing.

The marvelous girl can impress me sometimes.  I would like to take credit for something in her brain, but she does that work herself.  At the academic bowl on Saturday, she was able to spout off all sorts of knowledge - correctly- and she came up with lots of things I did not know.  How does this happen?  Doesn't she know that I have to have control over every aspect of her life, from her clothing to her corkscrews to her knowledge of trivia and literature and poetry and presidents and art and continents?

But Darby's head is all her own.  I'm thankful right now that she lets me pick out a top for her every once in a while.