Now For Something Serious

A month, or so, ago I started watching Who Do You Think You Are? on Hulu.com. The concept of the show is that celebrities trace their ancestry. I wish it was normal people finding out extraordinary things about where they came from. I guess that would be too much to ask from our culture, though, huh?

Anyway...One of the celebrities was Emmit Smith, the football player. One of the things that was done was a genetic test to find out the area of Africa that his ancestors came from. The country was Benin. He traveled to Benin to see what it is like and to see the old slave trading places. When he was there, he met a man who runs a school for children who have been rescued from slave traders. Emmit Smith seemed surprised to hear that slave trading is still going on in Benin.

Since then, I have seen article after article on the subject. I have a friend who started a ministry in China which helps women get out of prostitution. Many of them were sold, essentially as slaves, by their families. One of the men who ministers regularly in our church spoke briefly on Sunday about the sex industry in Houston and the people who work in it, who were sold into slavery, in their own countries, to be sold here, in America.

Slavery was not eradicated in the 1800's. It was made illegal, and the industry moved underground. The majority of people who are sold into slavery now, are women and children. They are made slaves in fields, houses, brothels and factories. They are kidnapped and sold by their own families.

Looking up statistics is difficult and overwhelming. It is hard to know which organizations to trust, given their track record in other areas (I'm referring to the UN.) And when you look at the numbers that are published, they vary widely. One report that I read said that 4 to 27 million people are slaves. Compare that to the 4 million legal slaves in the US before the Civil War. It is impossible to know exact numbers of modern slave trafficking, because the nature of crime is that it is secretive.

What I do know is that the Lord has not shown me all these things for nothing. Jesus came to this earth to set captives free. And He told His followers that they would do greater things than He did. National and International bureaucracy are not going to solve this issue. Only the love of Messiah in each of us will.

This Week's Menu

Yes, I realize it's Tuesday. Better late, than never.

• Sunday night: Baja Battered Fish Tacos (we had them 2 weeks ago, liked them so much, I have added them to the regular lineup.
• Monday night: Baked Chicken with leeks and onions: blech. It calls for this dijon sauce which sounds great, but not paired with the leeks and onions. One or the other, not both.
• Tuesday night: Multi Bean Chili. I just sampled it, and I think it's pretty tasty. Verdict is still out for the rest of the fam. I should have told them we were having beans, not chili. They may protest. I altered the recipe. For one thing, I one and a halved it. Then, I saw several commenters complain about wateryness. So, I did half water and half tomato sauce. I used diced tomatoes, instead of crushed, it's what I had and I used 4 kinds of beans, it's what I had, garbanzo, dark red kidney's, pintos, and black beans. 
• Wednesday night: Fragrant Shredded Beef Stew. We loved this a few weeks ago. It is definitely going into the regular line up. And I am making double this time.
• Thursday night: HEB had seasoned leg quarters on sale. So I am baking those and having corn on the cob and potato salad. 
• Friday night, I will be in OKC w/ 2 of my bestest friends. The guys will have to eat the left-overs I have been stock piling for them, which includes the yummy chicken pantry meal that I got from Pioneer Woman

Speaking of Pioneer Woman...I made this cinnamon toast this morning. I promise you, we will never have it any other way. So delicious!

Tiniest Amount of Bragging

You know that SB and all the boys went to Big Bend last week. They went with several of SBs co-workers.

There is one man in his unit who enjoys picking at SB over the fact that we homeschool our kids. I'll call him HS, he did not go to Big Bend. Yesterday, he tells SB, "I can't pick on you anymore, my brother is going to start homeschooling his kids."

To which another man, D, responds, "You shouldn't pick on him for his kids being homeschooled at all. I just spent a week with them, and they are intelligent, can talk about anything and are the most well-behaved kids I've ever been around." :-) I'm smiling the biggest about the well-behaved part.

More bragging, not about my own geniuses. My very good homeschooling friend has had to quit homeschooling. Her kids entered public school for the first time ever, three weeks ago. No one had any hope for her 12 year old son doing well on the math TAKS (stoopid [another KC phrase]Texas standardized test). Well, he passed. And her daughter who has severe speech apraxia made an "A" in reading on her very first report card, ever.

So, yes, I am doing a little bit of homeschool mom cheering today. And so so thankful that my kids don't have to take that stoopid TAKS test. I could go on and on about the idiocy of these tests which do not test knowledge and are designed to force schools to compete for funding, but I won't.

Saturday Stream

SB and the boys came home from Big Bend a day early! I was so happy! And good thing Big Bend is so far away. I took out the package of chicken legs to thaw when he called. 'Cause, ya know, I was going to just have eggs. But my guys needed more than eggs to come home to. I made this pantry meal from Pioneer Woman. Only, I didn't have any tomatoes. So I did have to go to the store.

Hows my food experiment going? Well, considering that I only bought half the groceries this payday, good, I guess? SB went grocery shopping with me last night. We had a date, to far south west Austin, then to Serranos (I am still suffering from the delicious jalepeno rellenos), Academy, HEB and Stuff Mart. I can call it a date, if I want to. Kids didn't go. It's a date. I did not buy them any packaged cereal. I'm going to try these oatmeal recipes from Eating Well.com. Breakfast bars and granola. SB did insist that I buy them some ramen. We compromised on 2 packages each. He wanted to buy a case. I also did not buy Dr. Pepper. I don't think SB noticed. He got in the car, when we were leaving and said, "Grocery shopping sucks." Yes, it does.

My guys took three disposable cameras with them to Big Bend. We turned them in to Stuff Mart for processing. I can't wait to see the pictures. I saw some from one of the other men that went. He promised to make me a disc. So beautiful. And then, there was the video from Q's viceo camera that he got for Christmas. It's this cheap little Vivitar. I can't get the software to install, so we can't upload pictures or videos from the camera, we have to watch them on the TV. It seems his favorite filming technique was to hold the camera in his hand, not point it at anything and allow the water to drag him over rocks. Most of the footage is under water. The Rio Grande is a muddy river, so you can't see a thing. And he recorded about 20 of those shots. I'm going to see if they have a cinematography class at the resource center. I know there is a cinematography merit badge. We'll have to sign him up for the class at winter camp.

SB and two of the boys got up early this morning to leave for an overnight camping trip assocaiated with going to National Jamboree. Q will be getting a ride back this afternoon for a baseball game. I promised to work on an agenda for our next homeschool group meeting. Being the president is boring and hard. Good thing I got church music done for the week, already.

20 and Counting

I just knew we'd be getting married any day. Any day did happen, about a year and a half later.

Poor SB. He was 18. He wanted to live the life of a free, teenage boy. I just wanted to get married.

We did shack up for about 6 disatrous months. During that time, we fought night and day. At one point, I moved out. And was so stressed over it, that I broke out in hives. That lasted for a few days, then I moved back in. At the end of our lease, we realized shacking up was not working out. I moved in with my my bff and he moved in with his bffs (heh heh).

And that was a pretty crazy time, too. We continued to date, if you want to call it that. Until one day in June of 1989, he told me that he wanted to break up with me to. see. some. one. else. I was crushed. More crushed than when my red-head boyfriend broke up with me in 10th grade. I mean, I was still under the impression that we were going to get married any day.

That was, and still is, the worst 28 days of my life. I couldn't eat. And for some stupid, stupid reason, I started seeing this psycho from work. He immediately started telling me that he loved me. I'm sure all I did was talk about SB. eww...just thinking about him gives me the willies.

It turned out the the person SB had his eye on, wasn't interested in him in the least and my plot to make him jealous (oh yeah...that's why I was dating Psycho) worked. It really ate him up to see that guy's car at our apartment.

I don't remember the moment we got back together, but I do remember that night. He told me that he never wanted to be one more minute without me and that we needed to get married as soon as possible. I was so happy. And we got married, 19 years old, 3 months later.

One of our friends is quoted as saying that it wouldn't last 6 months. I think of her every anniversary and smile a smile of pure satisfaction. 21 years this October. How's that for 6 months?  

What's so funny in looking back over that time is how important I thought certain things were and how long time seemed to take. It flies now. 28 days is gone in a blink. A few days...phh! And things that are important are really important. Not self-serving.

I am so thankful to the Lord for the protection that He gave during my teenage years. I could have died, been diseased, you name it. I am so thankful to Him that He put us in positions to ensure that we'd be where we are now. I believe with all my heart that He orchestrated the first few years of our marriage to play out in England. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't have the strong relationship that we have now. I am particularly thankful that He drew me to Himself and changed me. I can honestly say that I am not the same person I was. And I am still being changed. Thank You Jesus.

Another Running Commentary on My Week Alone

Yesterday, I cleaned and organized the utility room and cleaned the kitchen, including the inside of the fridge. The kitchen really needs a deep clean, but I was not up to that task. I did take crockery down off shelves and washed the gross, sticky dust that collects in the kitchen off.

So, while I was cleaning in the kitchen. I realized there was only ONE glass on the counter. And I thought, "I have managed to use one glass all week!" Ususally, by midday, there are 9 glasses on the counter and by evening, 20. I have tried everything from color coding to removing glasses all together to force the boys to use one.glass.a.day. Maybe it's me, I'm just not mean enough to enforce a one glass rule. nah. I'm pretty mean.

Then, I realized I haven't dirtied up a bunch of laundry either. I was wearing the same shorts and t-shirt that I wore on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Yes, they smell a little. I'm going for the juvenile goal of seeing how smelly they can get.

Other things that I have been able to do without the family here:

• Play Johnny Horton while I clean 
• Leave the windows open and not turn the AC on
• Take a bubble bath without people banging on the door and asking where something is
• Not washed the dishes every day and there is still room in the sink ;-)
• Make the bed (SB gets up much later than I do and I am already busy with the day when he gets out)
• Drink wine without being harrassed by the kids
• Have raspberry Crystal Light without getting red stains on the counter

On the other hand, with out the guys here, I have had to:

• Walk the dog.
• Take the trash to the curb and haul the cans back (yes, cans, plural, I have been getting rid of some stuff!)
• Check the mail
• "discover" dog vomit in the boys' bathroom (at least it wasn't on the wood floor)
• "discovering" more dog vomit in the boys' bedroom

My time alone was cut short. Hooray! I really missed those guys. I was going to have to add to the second list, Bowling With the Oldies alone. Bowling with the oldies is where we go to a nursing home and help the residents bowl. There is a rubber ball and plastic pins. Our job is pin setter. And beleive me, they WILL hit you with the ball if you're not fast enough.

Now, I have to go grocery shopping because the other thing that I could do while they were gone is eat what we have.

Last Roll of Treasures

Stuff Mart called to tell me the last roll of 4 year old film was in. They really messed up the actual processing. But I got a picture CD and the pictures are so good! The roll was the end of our family trip to west Texas and the beginning of HRL-B's wedding shower. So, really, it was the second of the 8 rolls that I didn't develop, if we're talking chronologically.

On our way home from Big Bend, we stopped at Balmorhea State Park, that's bal (a as in cat)- more- a (long a).

A few facts about BSP:
It is a popular destination for divers. Yes, in the middle of the Texas desert. Because there is a huge spring fed pool. Due to all the divers, it is the most noisy state park that I have been in. And I have been camping with Cub Scouts.

The pool is 77,053 square feet. That's 1 3/4 acres. It's 25 feet deep with a year round temperature of 72-76 degrees. That's cold, buddy! And it's FULL of some kind of endangered fish, turtles and catfish. And they are big! ick!

Seeing how we were there in April, I did not partake in the swimming. But the rest of our crew did.
I took pictures.

M
This is my favorite!

M

Me and nephew, half frozen, bringing me rocks.

M. I wouldn't get in there, either, buddy.

 Get it over with.

N, in an uncharacteristic nervous state. 25 feet of cold water, no thanks.

Q. Anything N can do, he can do. And don't you tell him he can't. 

Happy Birthday, Gramma

My Papa, mother's father, passed away last October. He was 89. He would have been 90 in February. His wife, my Gramma turned 90 yesterday. One of the reasons I stayed home from the camping/kayaking trip to Big Bend was to go spend her birthday with her.

Yellow Roses are her favorite, as are bluebirds. Yummy cream cheese icing. 

Currently, she is living in her Airstream across the road from my parents in a sort of RV park. The Airstream she is living in is the 4th one they owned in the last 30 years. She has lived in an Airstream for 30 years. Not merely traveled, lived.
Recently, she and my parents decided they should rent a house and live together. Pray for my mom. She has no idea what she is entering.

Still surprised.

My Gramma is still doing pretty good. She does have macular degeneration and is slowly going blind. But she moves around well and mostly has her wits about her. She seems to forget short term things. Like if I just hugged her goodbye, or not. It's time. Her mother lived to be 97. I was born on that great grandmother's birthday and my Gramma and Q almost share a birthday. His is the day before hers. And if you're counting, he was in Big Bend for his 12th birthday.

crying.
That's my mom with her arm around her.

My Gramma has been going to my parents' church since my Papa died. The people there love her. People love her everywhere she goes. I bet she has 200+ "kids" across the United States who call her MOM. Everyone at that church does.

Showing the love.
They were telling her how, at various times, they almost blew the surprise. 

They planned a surprise party. I was a little concerned about how she would receive it. She is 90. I mean, ever hear of scaring someone to death?
She just cried a while. Way to go. But then, she was honored that these people who have known her for such a short time wanted to give her a party.

Crying still. 

I don't know if I have said before, my dad's parents also live in the same RV park, only they live in a house. They came to the party. My parents met when they were 13 and started dating at 16. They were members of the same church. My grandparents were good friends. It has been convenient to have them all in the same place. Not that I have visited often, but it has been convenient.

The couple on the end of the table came from East Texas.
The next couple (standing in blue and sitting in brown) are my dad's parents.
My dad is in the background.
This is almost a pictorial study of that family. oy.

I stayed the night at my dad's parents. My grandmother and I stayed up talking and drinking cranberry juice and vodka. I think my head still hurts. But we did have a nice visit.

Isn't she cute? You know you're old, when you enter "cute" again.

Genetics, a weird and wonderful thing.
I am just seeing the wrinkles around my own eyes.
Guess I'll be getting some eye cream today.

What To Do...

Be Warned: Posts this week could get nutty.

With that said, I have decided to keep a running list of the movies I am watching without the guys here. To say we have different tastes in movies is a gross understatement. I usually retire to bed when the guys put a movie in. They like action. I need some kind of story line. Please. When I put a movie in, it is usually British or '80'/'90's and the collective sigh from my family produces so much hot air, our roof lifts a couple of inches. I rearranged the Netflix queue to put all my Poirots (ok, 6 of them) at the top. Much to my aggravation, I even had a dream about it the night before they left, SB let the boys take one of the two Netflix movies with them to Big Bend. There is so much wrong with that, I don't even know where to start. But it's done now.

So, in addition to The Biggest Loser, Here is a list of movies I watched this week:

• Saturday night: Singles and Who's That Girl  sigh...Chris Cornell with long hair...sigh
• Sunday night: at my parent's house.
• Monday night: started watching As Far As My Feet Will Carry (Take?) Me. It's a German movie about a WWII POW escaping from Siberia. I got bored and turned it off. 3 Episodes of Arrested Development.
• Nearly forgot that I also watched Poirot: After The Funeral.
• Tuesday night: I caught up on network shows on Hulu. Ugly Betty (the very last one), Dancing With the Stars (I was looking at FB on my phone while I was watching it and one of my FB friends said Kate had been voted off, it made watching her awful dancing much more fun to watch.), House and 2 more episodes of Arrested Development (really funny, not sure why I never watched it before.)
• Wednesday night: Several episodes of Arrested Development, then I tried to watch Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, but fell asleep.
• Thursday night: Poirot; Murder in Mesopotamia.

Then, they came home. The end.

Day 2, The Week By Myself

Hey, 40 Winkzz, party at my house this time ;-)

So, all my guys left at 7 on the nose. Funny. SB has a very flexible work schedule. His general hours are 10 am-6pm. I know, grueling. Unless they are dumpster diving, he usually gets there around 11. He has not ever been an on-time person. A fact that used to drive me crazy. When he was in the Air Force, I would just about have an aneurism every day, in a panic over trying to get him up and out the door to work. But give the man a camping trip and he is like a general, making sure everything runs smoothly to get out the door at 7 am.

I started watching the last season of The Biggest Loser a couple of days ago, on Hulu.com. Man! what a lot of drama. Crying and cheering every other minute. As soon as the men-folk left, Iwatched a couple of episodes. My plan was to deep clean one room of the house every day while they're gone. But 7 is awfully early to start cleaning. My other plan was to do some decorating in our room. Since SB got paid yesterday and my grocery bill is going to be half what it normally is with the guys gone for a week, I decided to go shopping for our bedroom, first.  Priorities.

And let me tell you, I got some stuff. New sheets, a wall sconce, framed art and silk greenery, a pretty decorative pillow and a toilet paper holder. Can you believe we've not had a toilet paper holder the enitre time we've lived here? 'Bout time, huh?

I had a Chick Fil A chicken salad sandwich and lemonade for lunch, came home and watched another episode of The Biggest Loser. Then, I started cleaning our room. I had taken some before pictures last week, but I accidentally erased them. Here is a picture of the stuff I took out of our room.

Some of it is going to a garage sale, some to the attic and some to the school room/lounge/storage room. I think I am going to calculate how much of our mortgage is being spent on storage in our own house.

Today, I was going to go to a curriculum thing that Mardel is doing for our homeschool group. But I woke up too late. I am on lunch break right now from my closet and bathroom clean. Later, I need to go buy my Gramma's birthday present, she's 90 on Monday. And I have a growing list of stuff we need as a result of cleaning. How does that happen?

I am hydrated and have some food in my stomach, so I guess it's back to the closet.

Field Trip

We went on a field trip today to th mounted police horse stables. It was very interesting. The officers did a great job. This is the third time I've been on a field trip here, and the first time, they split the kids up by general age group (big kids and little kids.)

This is the only picture that I can post. All the others have opk's (other people's kids)

Guess where this is?
The median of a 6 lane road.
I was sitting at a light and really liked the way the grass made a backdrop for the flowers.

More Treasures

I picked up 5 more rolls of film from Stuff Mart yesterday.

These are from a canoe/kayak trip that I took with SB, the boys and some of his co-workers. See, I told you I've been canoeing.

M
That's me paddling while SB takes pictures.
Hard, hard labor, I tell you.

Q
I know this picture is grainy, but I love the happiness in his face.

SB
LOVING life

N

Lunch Break
Me and N

And in case you are wondering, every roll of film that I picked up had this glowing bar across the bottom right corner of every picture. Very nice. Thank God for digital cameras, so you can see the picture and clean the lens off.

Is This Sick, Or What?

Yesterday, I had a chance to browse Half Price Books while waiting to pick up Q and his friend from a movie. I usually go with all three boys and with a list, or a pile to sell. This time I just browsed, and impulse bought.

I bought a tall book about skyscrapers. $1!

And one of those magnetic poetry boxes. You know, with all the words. This one was cowboy related.

Then, I proceeded to take the sheets of words apart and sort them.

Now, every time I go to the kitchen, I organize it by parts of speech.

pronouns

nouns

prepositions

disorganized verbs

I guess I could have had the boys do that, huh? (slap forehead) See, Christy? That would have been a PERFECT hands-on learning thing.

 huh! Take a look at the whole things again. It's like the two sides of my brain, one side trying to be organized and the other side, not.

We could further say that I have all my things (nouns) together, in their places (prepostions). While the people (pronouns) are grouped a bit more loosely. While I have good intentions, my actions (verbs) are a mess. And the rest of it, I just don't know what to do with.

And there's my therapy for the day.

On another note, take a look at our lizard. 

Deosn't that look miserable?

What Happens When I Don't Buy Ramen

You may know that I don't cook breakfast or lunch. I believe it makes the boys better men to make their own breakfast and lunch. Up until last week, they ate cereal and ramen nearly every day for breakfast and lunch. Sure, every once in a while, one of the younger boys was cajoled into making pancakes or eggs or bacon. But mostly, they ate cereal and ramen.

The other day, N accused me of child abuse because I refused to go buy ramen. He put his shoes on at noon and was about to go to Super S and buy some himself. I didn't let him.

Today they broke down and fixed themselves some lunch.

N's.
Left over ground beef and potato from taco night.
He poured bbq sauce in it. Some people think you can eat ketchup on anything.
N eats bbq sauce on anything.
Also, I know it's blurry. I was trying to be covert about taking a picture of his lunch.

Q's
That's tuna in the skillet.
I think he's making a tuna melt.
Maybe he thought frying the tuna first would make it tastier

I didn't get M's. He was too fast. Peanut butter and honey sandwich.

It is very difficult to bring them in for school.

Today's Math Lesson

+

=

Menu 2nd Week of April

Last week's menu went very well. I made the Indian Spiced Chicken Pitas for the boys on Friday, when SB and I went on our date. Everyone LOVED the Fragrant Shredded Beef Stew. The chicken and white bean soup was ok and so was the lemon dill chicken. (I changed the menu, in case you're keeping track.) I really hoped for more flavor from the lemon dill chicken, it was a tad disappointing.

So here is this week's menu:
Pasta Primavera (I plan on making homemade pasta, but I will probably break down and go buy some whole wheat pasta)
Japanese Chicken Scallion Rice Bowl
Eating Well Fish Sticks
Curried chicken and pasta salad

There are only four days, because starting Friday, I will be all alone for a whole week. Normally, I would be very very excited, but I am feeling a little sad. God has changed my heart drastically over the last week regarding my husband and kids and I am already feeling lonely.

Normally, when I am alone I eat junk. Instead, I am going to keep up the healthy eating. I'll have to look at it as a chance to make things that they won't eat.

Treasures

I took 8 rolls of actual film to Stuff Mart last week. Two of them came in. The film had been sitting in the bill basket since 2006. I got my digital camera in November of that year. I knew some of the rolls were from HRL-B's showers and wedding. I had no idea what all the rolls contained. I was pleasantly surprised at the treasured memories, I now have pics of.

Here are a few of my favorites. 

THE Pecos River. I don't know why, but I was super impressed at seeing THE Pecos River.

We went to Big Bend NP in April 2006.
Doesn't the color look more like 1976?
I guess that's what happens to film that you let go for 4 years before developing. 

One of my favorite sites in Beg Bend.
On one side of the tunnel is desert and the other side is green river valley.
Amazing.

SB thought that was Q in the chair. It's N, 4 years ago. I love genetics.
This is at Seminole Canyon SP. The host didn't like kids. And we were the only people there. 

The next section is not for the faint of heart, or animal right's activists. Be warned: Dead deer, and disembodied deer heads. 

Noah's first harvest with his bow. 11 years old. That is one proud daddy.

Admittedly, the one eared skull is kinda gross, but look at my boys' smiles. Gorgeous!

I included this for two reasons.
One is to remind myself to always wear sunscreen to ball games.
(I actually sit here, now, with a sunburned face from the game yesterday.)
Two is that SB thought the antlers on the window treatment was high interior design fashion.
Dear God, Please help us.  

Nice background SUVs.
M was 5.
Aww...

TWO, count 'em, deer on his first hunting trip! 8 years old.
There is a reason the one on the left has a hinky antler.
It's not something you probably want to know, though.
Again, would you look at that smile? 

Now We're Goin' Somewhere

I realize that I am now over-blogging, if there is such a thing, posting 3 and 4 times a day. This is much more cathartic and creative than Facebook, though, and I don't get irritated by people's statuses and hide them. One day, I'll only have 4 or 5 friends actually showing up on my feed.

My SB and I did go on our date. I did buy him a wedding ring. He grew about 2 sizes since the last wedding ring purchase. It is titanium and it is not as cheap as it said on the website. But that's ok, it really wasn't expensive and we have the money right now, praise the Lord!

I did get all gussied up in my skinny jeans and butterfly shirt, but I felt dumb asking my SB to take my picture, so I didn't get a new profile pic, yet.

I was reading the last post I wrote (not Worship this Week, the one I actually wrote, Would You Go With Me) and I realized it was kinda weird starting with Josh Turner and ending with Suicidal Tendencies. Such is my life. My SB's mom took his Suicidal Tendencies album away when he was a teenager because it worried her. We have it now, and he mostly listens to country music. I just go with the flow, for the most part. I grew up with country music, but I don't necessarily love it. You should have heard the iPods on our date last night. We had some Josh Turner, some other unidentified country crooners, The Smiths, jazz, Siouxsie and the Banshees ... it was pretty eclectic, to say the least.

                                                   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I left you outside my bedroom window, to the tune of falling luggage. My parents gave me luggage for my 18th birthday. I was not happy about it. But I sure appreciated it when I decided to run away. It was a huge set and this teenage fashionista decided to pack all her clothes.

The sound of the luggage hitting the ground made my sister's mutt dog bark a lot, which woke up my mom who had been sitting up with my sick sister. The plan was that I would get up as usual the next morning and drive off to "school." I would meet my SB in the parking lot of the VFW Hall. But with the dog barking and my mom moving around, I just knew she was going to look out to find my SB climbing over our fence to retrieve my luggage.

So, I swallowed my heart and my guts, and walked down the stairs. My mom looked up and asked me to wait for my dad. It was like she knew what was happening. I told her, "no." and walked out the front door and down the road to the meeting place. My SB wasn't there. He wasn't expecting me for hours. Turns out he was hanging out at the convenience store near my house, just shooting the breeze with the clerk. In the meantime, I was freezing my behind off in the doorway of the VFW Hall.

When he finally got there, I told him that I wanted to grow old with him. He told me something vaguely similar in return. Teenage boys will say anything that teenage girls want to hear.

We went several places over the next week. We went to my friend Stacy's, because she was already out of high school and would be home. We went to a go-cart place to say good bye to our friends. We went to Galveston and Pasadena. But ultimately, we went to California.

Houston, I thought I'd never see it again

We went to California in a 1972 brown Chevy Nova with no grill, because my SB had rear-ended two different people. The wind roared through the car every night and froze our feet until they were numb nubs.

This is to show you my combat boots. What an attractive picture.

I remember stopping in Tuscon, AZ at a diner and I swear to you it was just like Mel's Diner, with Mel and Flo and everything. We went to Mexico, where we were stopped coming back into the US. They kept my SB's knives. Something he is still upset over.

In Mexico (please pardon the smudges)

We stayed in California for a week and a half, then decided that that life was too hard and we should come home.

Long Beach

We had a flat and ran out of money at the same time in Kerrville, TX. I called my dad to tell him we were coming home, but in order to do that, we needed more money. So he wired us $200. I hope I thanked him. I should do that next week, when I see him ... in Kerrville, where they now live, isn't that crazy?

It was March 1988. All the people I had gone to school with most of my life, were still in school. But I felt like I had grown way way beyond them. It was hard relating to them now. I had had a life altering experience and I just knew I'd be getting married any day.
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I made a cool playlist to go with thist post, but the website is refusing to give me a code so that I can post it. We took 4 cassette tapes with us, U2's The Joshua Tree (perfect for driving through the desert), Tracy Chapman's self-titled album (perfect for teen angst), Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses (perfect for illicit love, yeah, you heard me), and Love and Rockets' Earth, Sun, Moon (more teen angst). Anyone of the songs off any four of these albums instantly puts me in the passenger seat of that Nova. Kinda prophetic, really, all those albums have driving/car/running away/looking for something songs.