{me}anderings . . .

asking for support . . .

i just got this email in my work inbox . . .

Dear Colleagues,

My son, Reid, is walking in this year's Race for the Cure, Saturday, Nov 4, 2006. Our family has certainly been touched by cancer. Reid lost his father to leukemia, but we have also been first-hand witnesses to hope and healing. A dear and close friend of our family, who was diagnosed with breast cancer a month after Bill, is a SURVIVOR 7 years later! After fighting great odds and widespread metastasis, she is today CANCER FREE. Reid walks this walk in honor of her and all women who fight this battle. Please consider sponsoring him to raise money for further cancer research and Breast Cancer Awareness. The link below will take you to his personal page....

Thanks for your consideration,

--bert bolus

it made me think of my dear friend holly who's attending her 15 year old neice lizzie's funeral today . . . and stef who is just learning of the fight ahead of her . . .  i don't really know what to say here . . . cancer is devastating . . . and it takes children and mothers and fathers and friends . . . but if you take the time to peek into the lives of these remarkable individuals you'll see how strong the human spirit really is . . . and how much we need each other . . .

would you consider supporting them?

you can help reid in his race for the cure here . . . 

he needs donations to be made by november 3rd . . .

you can directly support stef here . . .

stef says she is living minute by minute . . . please let your thoughtfulness brighten this moment for her . . .

more pumpkins . . .

billy scores!!!  smiling AND looking at the camera . . . this is the only one, but one's all it takes to make me happy . . . :D

had fun at the patch . . . sort of . . . it was VERY muddy and almost all the pumpkins were rotten . . . lesson learned . . . go pumpkin hunting the first half of october next year . . . g had fun running around though and we got a few chuckles watching him fall in the mud . . . ended up finding a good one at a little roadside stand . . . and snagged this cute pic along with a few others . .

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pumpkins . . .

so we did a trial run at the pumpkin patch wednesday night . . . went with carrie and her boys to help them pick out a pumpkin . . . had no intentions of buying my own as we'd already planned on going with billy and melissa saturday . . . just as i suspected . . . no photo  cooperation from the gman . . . he's three now, you know . . . think i mentioned that in my last post . . . life isn't all cheesy grins for mommy's camera . . . so love this picture of him though . . . it speaks volumes to me . . . love his total boyness . . . his newfound confidence and independence . . . his decisiveness . . . love his ready to go rush for the next adventure . . . he and blake had the best time racing through the pumpkins, climbing over the pumpkins, throwing the pumpkins . . . hee . . . good thing carrie actually bought one . . .  :D

tomorrow we go back for the real deal . . . billy's my ace in the hole . . . his "getting g to smile for the camera" skills rival renee's . . . yep . . . hoping for some good stuff tomorrow . . . but trying not to get my hopes up too much . . . after all, he is three now . . . :D

in the meantime . . . here's one more pic from wednesday . . . very reminiscent of "where's waldo" don't ya think . . . :D

and for another little funny, check out this pic of me in action on sherri's blog . . . no wonder g's camera avoidance skills are so finely tuned . . . but honestly, i just can't help myself . . . :D

food critic . . .

that would be me . . . renee and i took the kids to long hunter state park yesterday so the kids could run and we could get some cool fall pics . . . the kids ran, but we didn't get many cool fall pics . . . fate was against us on many fronts . . . the leaves hadn't turned there yet, the sun set too fast, the blue ring pops made for blue faces (and that stuff doesn't wipe off), page had issues with her blue jeans, g is now officially three (and thus uncooperative), i forgot to charge my camera before we left . . . but did we have fun???  YES!!!  never been to long hunter, but we'll definitely be going back . . . gorgeous out there . . . the lake, omg . . . and we saw 3 deer going in and 10 coming out . . . great playground . . . page loved the sand . . . g loved the daddy longlegs . . . and michelle and sherri and their crews showed up unexpectedly . . . a great time was had by all!!!  :D

afterward me and g got the big dq invite . . . i just have to say . . . mmm mmm GOOD!!!  you must all go check out the dairy queen in mt juliet . . . seriously good chicken tenders . . . REALLY!!!  g and page got to share their first banana split . . . total cuteness . . . but of course i don't have pics of that since my camera had long since died . . . never fear though, renee and i are good at reenactments . . . :D

he's three . . .

there's my sweet boy . . . officially three . . . he was born at 10:12 pm, so i like to take his picture at that hour every year on his bday . . . neat to remember, reflect, and dream . . .  :D

ummmm . . . and apparently you all forgot to tell me that three year olds don't nap . . . two days without napping now . . . i do not like this trend . . . :P

never did finish with the florida pics, so thought i'd post a few more today . . . love stretching birthdays out as long as possible anyway . . . these are of his party in florida with all his second cousins, aunty-cousins, aunty-grandmas, gma and papa . . . i'll let you all try to figure all that out . . . my favorite is the first one . . . love the way everyone jumps in to help the little guy on his bday . . . makes him (and me) feel special . . . and isn't that cake fabulous?  my mom made it . . . she makes them every year . . . cut up cakes are a bit of a tradition in our family . . . we all think she out did herself this year with that octopus . . . and then, of course, there's g spitting all over the cake instead of getting the candle blown out . . . luckily, troy was there to get'er done . . . this seems to be becoming a family tradition too . . . :D

g's room . . .

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g's room is finally starting to look like a boy's room . . . no more purple and green laura ashley hand-me-downs . . . now he has his very own red and blue bedding with lots of clouds to dream on . . . there'll be a 3 year old sleeping in that bed tomorrow night . . . sigh . . . they grow so fast . . . :D

dingleberries . . .

school mugshot . . . dang there are those overalls again!  :D

disclaimer:  if you've lost (or never had) your juvenile appreciation for potty humor then you should probably stop reading now . . .  :D

so, my dad's censor button never did work properly . . . and now that he's officially hit his golden years (75) . . . well, it's pretty much broken . . . here's a little conversation from our last visit . . .

mandy(20ish neice):  g you're such a dingleberry!
papa (my dad):  what did you call him?!!
mandy:  (innocently) a dingleberry?
papa:  do you know what that is?
mandy:  a dingleberry?
papa:  that's that piece that doesn't fall off
(now we're hitting the potty humor part)
me:  (laughing)  how do you know that dad?
papa:  well back in my day we had to use newspaper and dried corncobs.  weren't no wet wipes back then . . .

i was howling . . . and of course couldn't wait to get home to look "dingleberry" up in the dictionary (no internet at the parents' house) . . . here's what dictionary.com has to say about the matter . . . looks like dear old dad really knows his business . . . :D

results from:  the Web

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) - Cite This Source

din‧gle‧ber‧ry  /ˈdɪŋgəlˌbɛri/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ding-guhl-ber-ee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun,  plural  -ries.

Slang. a small clot of dung, as clinging to the hindquarters of an animal.

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[Origin: 1920–25; perh. dingle + berry; perh. by assoc. with dangle]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source

din·gle·ber·ry (dnggl-br)  Pronunciation Key   
n. Vulgar Slan.   

1. A piece of dried feces caught in the hair around the anus.
2. An incompetent, foolish, or stupid person.

princess page . . .

i fully intended to get to the grocery store today . . . but got derailed once again . . . this time by a needy friend having a big mac attack . . . she settled for a double cheeseburger though . . . renee renee renee . . . and speaking of mcd's . . . renee posted a little convo (that's my cool new word . . . convo . . . heh . . . we all know i'm not so cool) between page and g on her blog . . . i remember it a little more clearly since g's words do indeed come out of my mouth quite frequently . . . it went like this . . . 

g:  page . . . you get on my nerves
p:  your nerves are at mcdonald's in the trash can

funny funny stuff that . . . :D

so . . . princess page appears in my pages quite often bc she's oh so photogenic and delightfully precocious . . . here's a couple quickie pics i got of her the last time they came over to play . . . think i'm saving these for my hof entry this year (yep i'm entering . . . it's what i do) . . .

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and see . . . here she is again . . . this layout was one from my october scrap it! class . . . for all my faithful class attendees . . . i will be SURE to have my november class samples up by saturday . . . you guys are so funny . . . i'm still laughing over the coverall comment . . . so if you do get a chance to come by the store saturday i promise i will try to wear my cool new cammos . . . really they do exist . . . so  come and see!  :D

vacation's over . . .

gotta go back to school tomorrow . . . boooooooooooooooooo . . . :P

really wanting to post some more vacation pics, but too lazy to upload them . . . so here are a couple layouts i finished this evening . . . the first one i started a couple weeks ago and just now got around to doing the stitching and journaling . . . the second is another i made from my october jenni bowlin kit . . . :D

ok . . . brushing our teeth and heading to bed . . . tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired . . . :P

hot off the press . . .

finished this one just minutes ago . . . feels good to scrap again . . . this is the first one i've done all week . . . almost went a whole week without scrapping . . . that's unusual for me . . . used jenni bowlin's kit for a little jumpstart . . . LOVE kits lately . . . they're so helpful when i'm in a rut or don't have much time or i'm going somewhere and don't want to take much . . . these pics were from our visit to gamma and papa's this summer . . . there's that binky smile again . . . too cute . . . :D

the yardsale was a big success . . . me and g had LOTS of fun at sherri's all day . . . and made enough money to have lots of fun at old navy tomorrow . . . but whew!  garage sales are tiring!  me and g were wiped out when we finally got home and ended up taking  a 2.5 hour nap . . . we're chilling in front of the tv this evening watching tom&jerry and enjoying some pizza hut thin crust pepperoni pizza, old school buffalo wings, and a little coke classic . . . mmmmmmm . . . hungry?  :D