a frolic through the alley-way

Yesterday was a very cloudy, blustery day.

Perfect for pictures!

So, after fighting our way through the crowd at the Panera in downtown Chatt, my friend Leah and I headed to the art district.  They have the coolest alley that goes through some of the restaurants and coffee shops.  I absolutely love it!

 Isn't she lovely?

 

 I reluctantly agreed to hand over Knightley for a little while.

I have much more fun playing photographer than model.

 

These are just a few out of about 275.  Yeah...lol!

 

 

We really had a great time.  Rarely do we do anything with just the two of us, so it was a nice treat to go out and do a little shopping, take some pictures, and get coffee.  Hope we can do it again!

babysitting, two dresses, a photo shoot, and some tea

This has been a crazy week!  (That is pronounced kuh-RAY-zee).  Crazy, but fun, since I've been doing all of the things that I enjoy.  That is, everything except for blogging.  I just haven't had the time to sit down and write!  But now, I am giving my sewing machine and camera a much deserved break so allow me to plunge right in and start at the beginning.

The biggest priority this week was the dress for my Grandmother that I mentioned in an earlier post.  It had to be finished by Friday night, and guess when I put on the finishing touches?  You guessed it!  Friday night.  :D

I love how it turned out!  She picked out the fabric, gave me a store bought outfit to use as a pattern and let me go!  You can't see it very well, but the dress and cuffs have red, blue, and brown-ish stars on them.  Grammy is very patriotic! I also managed to find some really cute star buttons to match. 

Isn't she lovely?  :)

While I was in the middle of working on this dress, we drove down to Alabama to see my sister, Kim.  I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but she's expecting!  I'm super excited!  I will be getting another nephew, Robert Luke, in August.  I'm considering it a late birthday present.  :D

Anyway, Sarah and I got to watch the girls while Mama took Kim to have some tests run.  We really had a good time.  I brought my sewing along and I had a pretty interesting time trying to cut out Grammy's blouse and watch a movie at the same time.  I ended up just laughing on cue so they would think that I was paying attention, but don't tell them I said so!

I got to have a really good laugh when Haley picked up one of the unattached sleeves, cocked her head to one side and said, "Now how in the world does this work?"

Sewing.  It's a mysterious art.

My second big project this week was rather last minute.  Sarah's friend, Hannah, just had her sixteenth birthday and we were planning on having a formal photo shoot of the two of them to celebrate.  The dress that she found for the occasion was *ahem* backless, except, of course, for a few ribbons running from one side to the other.  She had already bought the necessary fabric, so I filled in the "hole" and made a train to hang down the back and hide the evidence.  I also made a little halter strap to go around her neck.

It turned out really good considering that it was last minute!

We really had a lot of fun taking pictures.  Hannah's sister, Leah, and I were the photographers accompanied by Gilbert and Knightley. 

(Yes, we named our cameras.  Hers is after Gilbert Blythe in Anne of Green Gables and mine is after Mr. Knightley in Emma. Don't ask us why, that's just the way it is...lol :)

Of course, for every picture there were several outtakes, like this one. 

I never could figure out what was so funny...

Leah and Gilbert. ;)

Love these girls!

Now we come to yesterday afternoon which was the Ladies' Tea at our church.  It was really a wonderful time and a great end to my busy week.  There were ten tables in all and each hostess decorated her table in any way she liked.  The result was stunning.  Very diverse, but reflective of each personality and interests.

 My table.  I was so excited to get to pull my china out of

my hope chest and actually use it!

Here are a few pictures of some of the other tables.  The ladies really did a wonderful job!

 All of the ladies really had a wonderful time fellowshipping and enjoying the
games, singing, and the guest speaker.

 And the food was excellent too!

So, now you know why the blog has been rather silent this week!  I'm looking forward to things calming down just a little bit.  But only a very little bit!  May is the busiest month of the year in our family.  I like to refer to it as "May Madness".  With five birthdays, Mother's Day, recitals, graduations, etc. things can get a little crazy around here, but we shall prevail!!!!

history of a friendship

Friendship is born at that moment when one person

says to another, "What!  You too?  I thought I was the only one."

C.S. Lewis

*******

Today, I have been going through a lot of old pictures.  Not an easy task, considering that Mama or I have always had a camera glued to our hand.  But, I braved the massive piles of photo albums that are slowly falling apart and the stack of CD's that we have managed to burn ever since we got our first digital camera in 2003, and had a wonderful time traveling down memory lane.

This is something that I do quite often.  I'm not really sure why.  I suppose I just really enjoy remembering "how things used to be".  And let me tell you, how things used to be and how they are today are very different.  Not in a bad way, it's just different.  Different house, different town, different church, different people, etc.  For me to look back approximately 7 years is almost like looking into a completely different lifetime.  I'm sure this is something that everyone can relate to.

However, in looking at all of the differences between then and now, there was one thing that stuck out to me that really hasn't changed much at all:

...the presence of this lovely face.

I think that most of us have at least one friend, one person outside of our family circle who we trust with absolutely everything.  I count myself very blessed to have such a friend and to have had her for so long!  At the risk of being mushy, I must say that I love Jen so very much and I am so thankful for her.  I honestly don't know what I'd do without her and I don't tell her that nearly as often as I should.

Jen and I have known each other since 1998.  (As my niece, Haley, would say, "The NINE-TEEN HUNDreds????  Are you KIDDING me????????)  Believe it or not, we met when our parents signed us up for the homeschool basketball team when we were seven.  I think they did it simply so that they could be entertained once a week by watching a bunch of six and seven years olds toddle around the court, randomly stopping to put our hands on our hips and yell, "You're doing it wrong!".

After that horrific experience (I found out very quickly that I was not to be the basketball star that my mother was...) we saw each other occasionally as we both participated in community plays and then, after my family joined the homeschool group, our friendship really began to flourish.

We're both approximately 11 years old here.

Christmas 2003

Fourteen years later, I can honestly say that Jen has taught me a lot, whether she meant to or not.  For instance, she introduced and gave me an appreciation for slapstick comedy and showed me that it really is possible to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in one night after swimming 6 races in a swim meet and driving for and hour and a half.  Ok, so I watched it through half-closed eyes, but I stayed mostly awake!

All kidding aside, I really have learned a lot just by being around and watching her. 

At the beginning of our friendship, I suppose you could say that we were the odd-balls out.  We just happened to be weirder than the other weird homeschool kids (scary thought, isn't it!) and were sort of left to ourselves most of the time.  While I furiously tried everything I could possibly think of to make myself fit in, Jen just sat back, watched, and happily went on with her weird ways.   I'll never forget her looking at me and saying, "You know, I just don't understand why you think it matters that much."

It took about seven years for that to sink in to my thick skull, but it finally did!

Trying to avoid boredom while our younger siblings

were rehearsing their play - 2003. 

2003 - Me in the infamous purple dress and Jen in

the coveted blue dress.

I suppose there comes a time for all of us, when we're growing up, for us to find out who our friends really are.  That time came for me just before my thirteenth birthday.  I remember it like it was yesterday, and yet I couldn't really tell you how it happened.  It just did.  All of a sudden, I looked around and everyone was gone.

Except Jen.

Let me tell you, God knew that He was going to have to find an incredible person who would put up with my highs and lows and in-betweens and survive it, and He found her!  If anyone were to ever ask me what a true friend looks like, I would immediately point them to Ms. Jennifer Elise.  It's safe to say that everything I know about being a friend to someone else, I learned from her, though I sometimes wonder if I'll ever be able to manage it as easily as she does.

We've really been through a lot together.  Laughter, tears, pain.  I'll never forget pushing her down the hall in her wheelchair after her foot surgery and ramming her foot into the corner.  We both cried for about 15 minutes.  Then of course, there was the time I fell out of the tree, the time we nearly collapsed with laughter after I stepped on my skirt and nearly lost it while on stage in front of a huge audience, the time she nearly fainted when we had to dissect a starfish (I didn't feel sorry for her because I was to busy being irritated that she got out of the icky mess and wondering why I didn't think of the fainting idea first...), the time we choreographed an entire dance routine to the Larry Boy theme song in her living room, oh yeah, and the time I practically handed her first place in the spelling bee because I forgot to say "capital A" when asked to spell "America".

2009 - We managed to talk one of Jen's brothers into

being our photographer. ;)

Over the years, we've become virtually inseparable.  So what if we now live about one and half hours from each other?  When you've got cell phones, email and Facebook, anything is possible!

Our conversations usually cover just about everything.  And by everything, I do mean everything.  It's so nice to have someone to whom you can say virtually anything that pops into your head, whether it be silly, serious, theological, spiritual, emotional or otherwise, and they won't write you off as a total psychopath.  Of course, this is probably because we usually feel pretty much the same about just about everything.  I'm sure there are some exceptions, but I can't think of any!  I'll never forget the first time we sat down and had our first, serious, woman to woman talk.  I think we were probably thirteen or fourteen and after it was over, we leaned back, looked at each other and said, "Wow, this is pretty cool!"

2009 - 17 years old and ready for graduation!

May 2009 - If you've never been to a homeschool graduation,

you've got no idea what you're missing!

Today, we're still weird and going strong!  We both look a little different than we used to, our teeth are straighter, we learned how to fix our hair, wear make-up, and we both wear glasses.  Hopefully, we're also a little more mature than we used to be, but otherwise, things haven't changed much.  Topics of conversation have changed a bit, but 2 1/2 - 3 hour phone calls are still the norm.  The inside jokes are still just as funny, and we still love embarrasing the "little ones" even though they aren't so little anymore.  (It's a whole lot easier to embarrass 6 ft tall little brothers than it was to embarrass the 4 ft ones!)

Now, that we're both rapidly approaching our twenty-first birthdays, I have to sit back and wonder what my life would have been like without Jen.  Honestly, I can't imagine it.  She's been the best friend that this quirky homeschooled girl could have ever asked for and I wouldn't give her up for the world.

I love you, Jen!  And I look forward to a lifetime of friendship, because, as the saying goes:

"We will always be friends - you know to much!"

on the town

I love downtown Chattanooga.  It certainly isn't called the Scenic City for nothing.

Unfortunately, I don't get down there very often and every time I do I manage to get lost.  Okay, maybe lost is a harsh word.  I simply tend to get slightly bewildered when trying to determine which road will take me in the general direction of my desired destination.  There is a difference.

A few days ago, my friend Jen and I drove down and spent the afternoon traipsing about.  We had a lovely picnic in Coolidge Park and spent most of the afternoon wandering around taking pictures.

Isn't she just lovely?

 This was taken in quite possibly the coolest alley ever.  I never thought I'd refer to a fire escape as beautiful, but this one really was!

A picture of the photographer. :)

**sigh** What did I do to deserve such gorgeous friends????

The brick piano on the north shore.  I just had to stick

this one in here because I thought it was cool!

I can't wait to go back!  There are so many picture perfect possibilities!

on a rainy day...

I'm sitting at my sewing table listening to the rain pounding on the roof.  I just love rainy days.  That is, I love watching rainy days through a window.  The gray sky, the dim light, the soothing pitter patter, and on cold winter days a fire and a cup of tea.  Love it!  However, getting out in the rain is a completely different story.  I don't like getting wet.  I don't even like going swimming these days.  But, it always happens that God sends the rain on the days that I'm out the most.  I suppose He sees it as character building.  I've already dried out once from going out this morning.  Now, I am psyching myself to brave the vicious precipitation for a piano lesson later. 

*********

This past weekend we were in the small town of Athens, TN at the Pumpkin Town festival.  I grew up just north of there in the even smaller town of Sweetwater, so, it was kind of like going home.  We saw a lot of people that we hadn't seen in quite a few years.  One gentleman was a member of the little church my dad pastored when I was little.  We hadn't seen him in about 15 years.  Others we saw were members of our old homeschool group and other people that we don't see much of since we moved to Cleveland.

Jennifer, one of my oldest and very best friends, stopped by to see us.  I don't get to see as much of her as I would like, so it was a real treat for her to come.  She and her family just got back from Ghana a few weeks ago.  They were there visiting their new brother, Nicholas.  I can't wait to meet him when they are finally able to bring him home.

Oh Jen, we've been through so much together!  I think she knows just about everything about me that there is to know.  That's kind of a scary thing now that I actually think about it! 

We've been best friends since we were about 7 years old.  We met when we were both on the homeschool basketball team.  Yeah, you read that right.  A group of homeschooled 6 to 9 year olds on an actual basketball team.  It was just as scary as it sounds!  But we survived!  Maybe a little scarred from the experience, but we survived!

I love you Jen!

**********

Before we got busy, I had a chance to walk around the block and see what was going on.  Upon turning a corner, what should I see, but a big banner that read "Creation Museum".  I was sooooo excited!  I've always heard about the Creation Museum, but I've never been.  My family has only been north of Knoxville three times that I can remember, so we've never really had the opportunity. 

The gentleman running the booth was very friendly.  We talked way longer that I intended to.  It was so nice to discuss my beliefs with someone who understands.  So many times I feel as if I'm being judged when I voice my beliefs.  His conversation was really a breath of fresh air!

He gave me this book: Already Gone, by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer.  I've been wanting to read this book ever since I first saw it in a catalog, but my book budget kept interferring.  I'm already about a third of the way through it and I have to say that it is one of the best books I've ever picked up.  Every professing Christian should read this book.  It is a definate eye opener concerning issues that many of us have chosen to turn a blind eye to.  It is truly a must for every Christian library.

**********

In my spare time, I've been tying up some loose ends in the sewing room.  Here's a little project that I started several months ago and then forgot about.  It's a large bag made from some of my Thimbleberries scraps.  I finished it last night with the assistance of Misses Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. :)

Genevieve was kind enough to model the finished product for the camera.

I got to use it for the first time this morning to carry my books with me to a class I've been taking.  It carried quite nicely I thought.

Here's a picture of the burgandy afghan I've been working on for the last few months.  I was commissioned by my aunt to make this after complaining of boredom back in the days of my nannyhood.  I've finally reached the home stretch in this project.  It's been one of the easiest crochet projects I've ever undertaken.  Easy, as far as the pattern, that is.  Making an afghan is still an arduous task no matter how easy it is.  I've never actually finished one.  I started one many years ago and ended up turning it into a scarf.  Mama is a really big fan of this one.  I think she might be planning to take possession of it herself!

**********

Wow, this has been a really random post.  Sorry about that!  My mind is about as random as they get.  ;)