Stretched thin, for sure. But graduation is behind us, and I can finally look ahead to some of the fun things coming up with anticipation instead of stress. (Chicago, look out, I’m coming back! And I’m bringing Josh with me!)

Saturday, as the tornado sirens blared (from FOUR in the morning until TWO the next morning, AWESOME), we celebrated with my dad his nearly 28 years of service to the police department.  And as we watched the news and saw the families affected by the flood waters rising all around our community, I was once again reminded how lucky we are.  Lucky that none of us had any flood/tornado damage.  That my dad put his life on the line for so many years on the department and was never seriously injured.  Lucky to have a job that I love, even when it gets crazy busy.

When things pile up and get overwhelming, it is sometimes hard to remember life is good.  But how can it not be when you have a buddy to play Christmas-Chicken-Tug-of-War?

A couple days ago I got a phone call from my mom containing several words that made my heart stand still.  “Skill saw,” “Accident,” “Ambulance,” “David.”  I sat frozen at my desk, waiting for information as my mom followed an ambulance carrying my stepdad to the hospital.

Thankfully, he is going to be fine.  Thankfully, my mom is a nurse and happened to be home when my stepdad cut a gash through his thigh.  Thankfully, she did a good job tying a tourniquet and he didn’t lose much blood.  Thankfully, David kept his cool and knew to put pressure on and hold together the wound when the safety feature on his skill saw failed.  Thankfully, that skill saw is now in the dumpster.

Moments like this remind you to take time and be thankful for the ones you care about.

Josh, Holly, and I headed over to their house that night and were relieved to see that everyone was in good spirits.  As we drove home and I watched Holly enjoy the fresh air, I reflected on how thankful I am that my Saturday morning breakfast buddy will be good as new after taking some time to heal and recuperate.  I am thankful that he has a built-in nurse, my mom, to check in on him.  I am thankful that my brother stepped up to the plate and ran around picking up prescriptions and taking care of the chickens.

(did I mention they have chickens?  Justin:  How do you get all the chickens to go in the coop?  David: I usually shake some feed to get their attention.  Justin:  Ohhh.  David:  Why, how did you do it?  Justin:  Uh…I used the water hose.)

I am thankful for all of my awesome family members.  I am also thankful that I have a husband who makes me laugh when I am stressed, and a dog who likes to let her lips flap in the breeze.

Here’s a little-known fact about my family: my stepdad and mom raise chickens so they don’t have to buy eggs.

Actually that isn’t a little-known fact if you know me at all because I think it is so fun and I tell everyone the first chance I get. (Even though I actually do not like birds at all. I appreciate the process from afar.)

Over dinner one night my stepdad dropped the bombshell on me that he buys his chickens from a nearby Amish community. Talk about taking interesting and multiplying it by fascinating! I was hooked, and made him promise to take me along the next time he ventured out there.

We picked a date and I wrote it in big block letters in my planner. I was eagerly awaiting my visit with the Amish. Finally the date arrived! Did you guys know that there is an Amish community in Mississippi? I did not.

It was a little tricky to find (translation: there is no way I would have ever found it, or my way home, were it not for my stepdad.) I clutched my camera (though I was careful not to actually photograph any of the people so as not to offend) as we approached the ten or twelve houses sprawled across a large plot of land.

This windmill is used to draw their water up from the well below:

Each “house” has several buildings associated with it.  The house below had a barn, a greenhouse, a shed used as a shop to sell vegetables, and several other storage buildings for keeping their horse-drawn buggies, woodpile, etc. Oh and we can’t forget the outhouse.  (and we have just landed on the biggest hurdle in my surviving as a member of the Amish community. Well, that and the lack of wifi…)

By the mailboxes were signs indicating which goods that family has to sell. They add or remove signs based on the season and the crops. There was a wide range from vegetables to leather goods to soaps and candles, and so on. I loved the handlettered signs:

All of the families had these gourds hanging near their homes. My stepdad told me they are to attract birds that protect the crops from insects and other threats.

The people were very quiet and friendly, though they seemed shy. Everyone wears handmade clothes, the guys in pants/suspenders and straw hats, the girls in dresses and bonnets. I would have loved to sit and ask them questions about their life for hours, but everyone seemed very busy, doing chores or tending the little sheds that served as shops, even the smaller children, so I did my best to stay out of their way and not distract them. The children seemed to have a hard time keeping their eyes off of us though, I am sure they are curious about the strangers who visit.

This is their schoolhouse:

I noticed the hats hanging out on the porch of this family’s house, and we figured they must be getting ready for the next day’s Sunday service, which takes place in different house each week.

The whole experience was so interesting to me, I can’t wait to go back when they get their corn crop in. On this trip we bought: eggplants, onions, tomatoes, homemade bread, peanut brittle, and a blueberry pie.

A quick snap–I’m trying to train myself that when it comes to photographing my life, I don’t always have to wait for perfect lighting and pretty backdrops. Sometimes you have to just TAKE the picture! It’s more about capturing the moment you’re sharing with people you care about. :)

Then I wandered around town and enjoyed the fact that SPRING!  has arrived!  Yay!  Sorry Winter, but I am not sorry to see you go!  Spring makes me feel like a kid again–who needs to grow up, right?  :)

Of course I had to round the evening off with sweet Holly:

RULES: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

Okay, I’m totally breaking the rules already, but I can’t come up with 25 things about myself. (This is hard, y’all!) So I decided to write 25 memories from my formative years instead (which I guess is still 25 random things if you think about it. Except I got to number 15 and kind of went blank. So. Yeah. Sorry if it wasn’t everything you dreamed of!)

1. In the gymnasium of our church, there was this little tiny door (maybe 2 or 3 feet high at the most) tucked away in the back. It was always locked, and I began daydreaming of what magical things could possibly be hidden behind that tiny locked door. I checked it EVERY single time I was in the gym, and the mystery of it DROVE ME CRAZY! Finally one day, a miracle happened! I went to test the tiny door and found it unlocked. Surely this was a magical day indeed! So I slowly, cautiously pushed the door open, only to discover: a racquetball court. Seriously? That’s it? Biggest letdown EVER.

2. One Christmas, my brother and I struck a deal: he would tell me what I was getting, and I would tell him what he was getting, and no one would ever know, because we would keep it a secret. I went first, and whispered into his ear what I had seen my mom buy him the day before. Before I knew what was happening, my brother was running all over our house, shouting at the top of his lungs: “I’M GETTING A DINOSAUR GAME! I’M GETTING A DINOSAUR GAME FOR CHRISTMAS!” It seemed that in his excitement over his upcoming gift, he abandoned our pact without a second thought. Traitor. Sure enough, a few minutes later my mom appeared at my door, arms crossed. I got in trouble, and I didn’t even get to find out what I was getting.

3. So one year in middle school, everyone had to participate in Jump Rope for Heart, and they had a competition for the team with the best costume or something. I didn’t really care what we did, because I think it got us out of Science class. So anyway, there were four of us and one girl’s mom came up with the idea that we would be the Puddle Jumpers and wear rain jackets, etc. Only all we could find on such short notice were those clear plastic ponchos which are not nearly as cute as the yellow rain slickers we had in mind. But anyway we show up for JRfH in good spirits, and they were playing TLC’s “Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls” over the PA system in the gym, and I remember thinking, “How appropriate!” right before some guy yelled out: “WHY ARE YOU GUYS DRESSED LIKE CONDOMS?”

4. When I was six or seven, I was in a summer daycare program at my mom’s church, and for my birthday, they let us bring cupcakes for the whole class. Well, the previous February I had learned about the Mardi Gras king cake, with the little plastic baby hidden inside and I was FASCINATED at the idea of finding a treasure inside your dessert. Surely, that meant good luck, right? So I hatched this plan in my head as we were baking the cupcakes. I decided that after we pulled them out of the oven and were waiting for them to cool, I was going to sneak some lucky trinket into one of the cupcakes. I had to think fast because this idea came upon me pretty late in the baking process, so I grabbed the first “lucky” thing I could think of (a penny) and shoved it inside one of the cupcakes. My mom never even noticed the tiny indention as we frosted them. The next morning on the way to school I apparently couldn’t contain my giddiness anymore because I gushed my entire plan, sure that my mom would think it was the coolest thing ever. Also, selfless, because I was trying to give people good luck. She didn’t. And before our teachers could serve any of the cupcakes, they had to break apart each and every one of them to find the penny so that nobody would choke. I remember sitting there looking at my stupid, broken up cupcake and thinking, NO ONE GETS IT.

5. My friend Julie’s mom used to keep us after school until my mom got home from work, and during that time I honed the skill of “Holding It” for hours at a time, because Julie’s baby sister’s nursery backed up against the bathroom, and she was a light sleeper. Because of this, we were not allowed to flush. But at home, we got in trouble if we didn’t flush, and I just couldn’t NOT flush. On the other hand, I was TERRIFIED to flush, because people, you have NEVER seen WRATH until you have woken up Julie’s mom’s baby. So I learned to hold it.

6. (Related to number 5) I once got in HUGE trouble with Julie’s mom because I tried to use the bathroom in their backyard. What do you want from me, woman!? I was just trying to be accommodating.

7. On the morning of my third (?) birthday, I woke up, looked out the window, and saw a swing set in the yard. I was SO excited, and started jumping up and down and calling for my mom to come look at MY SWINGSET!!! And then my mom came in and said, “No, that’s not yours, it’s the boys’ next door.” And I was CRUSHED and cried and cried. Turns out it WAS mine, but my parents had wanted to surprise me with it at my party later that day. Cruel, mom. Just cruel. Good thing I got over it :)

8. You know how those door-to-door book salesmen would come and try to get you to keep a set of books at your house for like, a week or something, in hopes that you would fall in love with them and buy them? Well, we always took them up on that offer because we were fast readers. One day my friend’s mom took a bunch of us up to the mall and let us get ice cream, and I thought very carefully before making my selection: Superman ice cream, which is a swirly red, blue, and yellow concoction. By the time we got home, I was feeling a little bit rumbly, and my mom told me to lie down and be still. So I got in bed with a stack of our loaner faux-encyclopedia books, and I’m not sure what happened next, but it was purple in color, and we had to buy that entire set of books. (This probably sheds some light on my whole not liking ice cream thing, huh?)

9. Once, when my brother and I were old enough to be latchkey kids, we got the idea that we would do something REALLY grown up, and surprise our mom with it. Like, cook dinner. Except, we didn’t know how to cook anything. So we hunted around the kitchen until we found something we were confident we could make: a can of orange juice concentrate. We carefully prepared the orange juice and then began to wonder just how we would present it. Well, we couldn’t just hand it over and say, “We made orange juice!” That wouldn’t be nearly dramatic enough. So about the time she was supposed to get home, we left the juice on the counter and hid under my brother’s bed. (not really sure why?) Anyway, our mom came home and started calling out for us, and we remained silent, so proud of ourselves for the great surprise she was about to discover. Then her voice started to get more and more panicky, and that was when I realized: oh, crap. She probably thinks we’ve been kidnapped! So I jumped out from under the bed and ran out into the hall, just as she was rounding the corner and promptly scared the living daylights out of her. I’m pretty sure we got in trouble for that one.

10. In middle school, I had a sleepover for the members of the aforementioned Puddle Jumper team, and we were doing the regular teenager gossiping and watching movies when the phone rang. It was my stepdad on his cell phone, and he said that he wanted us to very quickly and quietly meet my mom in her bedroom, because he had been outside locking up and thought he saw someone sneaking around the house. Of course at that point we were all cracked out on the high that is teenage sleepovers and pizza and Mountain Dew, so we subsequently FREAKED OUT and started inching out of my room in what I can only describe as a slow-moving huddle of squeal and nail polish. Just as I put my hand on my parents’ bedroom door, it yanked open and there stood a dark figure with a terrifying monster face. As you can imagine, we BACKED THAT TRUCK UP, screaming all the while, but when we turned to run away, there stood another hulking creature with fur and fangs. I am pretty sure one of my friends (not naming names!) blacked out for a second, as I have this vivid memory of her SINKING to the floor and trembling. My parents were proud of that moment for YEARS. (I can’t say I blame my mom, after all the near heart attacks documented right here on this page.)

11. When I was younger I loved Unsolved Mysteries and became obsessed with ghost stories. When we moved out of our house, my main goal was to make sure whoever lived in my bedroom next would be convinced that the room was haunted. So I scribbled various threats along the lines of “This room is HAUNTED” in pencil all over the closet walls. I’m sure my parents appreciated that, having repainted the entire house to get it ready to sell.

12. One year for my birthday, we had wrapped up party favors, and my job was to put everyone’s name on their favor using little alphabet stickers. By the time I got to my brother’s favor, I had run out of the necessary letters to make his name, so I just decided to use his age. But that one little sticker didn’t seem like enough, so I put three of them on there. He was 6. I couldn’t understand why mom got so mad about that.

13. I read Harriet the Spy once, and decided to do some spying of my own. Unfortunately my Spy Notebook was basically filled with stuff like, “My brother is a butthead.” and then I went and left it on the kitchen counter. Let’s just say my parents did not support my brief stint in espionage.

14. I once had a sleepover with several girls from school, and one of my friends had a twin sister. I wasn’t really that close with the sister, but you can’t invite one twin and not the other, so both of them were there. Anyway, as we approached that cracked-out hyper stage that only affects slumber party participants around oh, midnight, we decided to do something that apparently my friend’s sister did NOT approve of (probably telling ghost stories.) She decided to feign a trip to the bathroom, but what she really was doing was going to tell my mom all about how we were Up to No Good. Unfortunately for Twin B, no one had mentioned the fact that you DO NOT touch my mom while she is asleep, for she is a LIGHT sleeper. So Twin B crept into my mom’s room, and managed to slip all the way up to the edge of the bed (a feat I am still impressed by, because my brother and I could never get that close.) Anyway, she grabbed my mom’s arm, which startled her awake, prompting her to SIT STRAIGHT UP in bed, SCREAM in Twin B’s face, and terrify the bejesus out of her. (poor kid was probably already scared from the ghost stories) Anyway, I don’t really remember what happened next, but I think they had to call the twins’ mom to get Twin B to stop crying and calm down. The moral of the story: don’t be a tattletale.

15. Oh, boy. This is one I think my mom never knew about until THIS VERY MOMENT. (Hi mom! I’m too old to be grounded! Statute of limitations! Justin made me do it!) When I was [age redacted because I was WAY too old to not have known better] we moved into the first two-story house my brother and I had ever lived in. If you grow up in a house with only one floor, stairs can seem very intriguing. The first couple of afternoons that we had the house to ourselves after school, we would slide down the banister just because we could. After a while, though, the banister sliding got kind of boring, so we had to spice it up a little. Now, our living room had very high ceilings, and from the top of the stairs on the second floor, there was a little ledge where you could lean over and see down into the space below. Directly under this ledge was a couch. Do you see where I am going with this? Yes. My brother and I started daring each other to jump off of the ledge and land on the couch. I know. I KNOW. It didn’t look that high? It was pretty high. After going back and forth and back and forth over who was going to jump first, and various moments of one of us sitting on the ledge with our legs hanging over and chickening out, I finally manned up and said, “FINE. If you are so scared, I’ll go first. But then you HAVE to do it!” My brother promised he would. And so I swung myself up and over and crossed my arms over my chest and I landed on the couch grandly. But then, because of I DON’T KNOW, the momentum of falling such a great distance, I bounced. I bounced HIGH. And when I came down from that bounce, I did not land on the couch. I landed on the ground. Which, though carpeted, felt like concrete. I really am kind of amazed that there was no resulting emergency room trip. Oh, gravity. What a lesson you taught me that day. And by the way, my brother? Totally did not keep his promise to follow suit. Shocking, right?

We snuck him out during Thanksgiving dinner, and Josh, Holly, & I gave my stepmom a canvas of this shot for Christmas.

Me (or my brother): Da-aaad, you’re supposed to be doing ____ this way!
Dad: Now who’s milking this cow?

*silence*

Dad: That’s right.  You’re just holding the tail.

I cannot tell you how many times my dad reminded me that he was, in fact, milking that cow. It often preceded a threat to “thump [me] on the noggin.”