My Life as a Novel

Today is Kyle's Golden Birthday. We were recently introduced to this concept by one of our roommates. He's turning 25 on the 25th, so that makes this birthday extra-extra-special. "Golden", even. Who knew?

Labels: The Hubby

We rolled into town on Friday evening around 8 PM. And it really was a pretty fantastic weekend.

full of everything deep-fried you could dream of, and a never-ending supply of lemonade


I tried so hard to get a decent picture of this particular room in this house. To me, it was the essence of Life in the South. While I do not always relish this "essence", it's easy to romanticize it for just a weekend.

Anyway. This is a picture of Kyle and James Moore, Sr. -- father of Kyle's good friend, James, who we haven't seen in years.


The front porch. What is Southern life without it? Add a basket of boiled peanuts and a fountain of Mint Julep for extra doses of Southernness.


Later we ended up (in the A/C) at Model T's. This lady was there. I'm pretty sure she captivates my idea of how excited people get about the Watermelon Festival.


Later, she fell asleep in the corner with a lit cigarette hanging out of her mouth.
We woke her up before she burned the building down.


And, once again in the A/C, we enjoyed the parade inside the pizzeria.
Yeh, Hampton has a pizzeria.


Let's face it -- this is what we really went to Hampton for.


Also, their dump truck got pimped out.

And then, there was a birthday party for this little lady, who turns TWO today!






And Joey. I hope I have a kid just like him one day. :)
"Hey!! There's a real nekkid behind in there!"

And that's all I have time for today. Because vacation starts on FRIDAY!!! And I have a lot to get done before I turn my brain off for a week or so!

Labels: family, Friends, photo

Labels: family, Good for a laugh, The Hubby

is the 66th Annual Watermelon Festival in Hampton County. And this weekend, Kyle will be the Prodigal Son - returning home to make his momma proud.

Where we live now, there's nothing that compares to the Watermelon Festival. Every store-front window in Hampton is painted-up with watermelons and vines. Businesses open and close strategically so that the owners are able to both enjoy the festival and make a profit from it. There are vendor booths of craftspeople peddling their wares. More sugar and deep-fryers than should be allowed in a small Southern town simultaneously. (Seriously, the sight of it would give a diabetic the cold sweats.) A street dance that shuts down a couple of roads for several hours on Friday night.

There's something about a whole town celebrating together like this that makes me happy. I mean, no one else cares about the Watermelon Festival -- except maybe a few state politicians attempting to hob-knob with Everyman. But it seems to me that everyone in Hampton gets excited about the Watermelon Festival. (Mind you, these are not my assertions based on the results of a scientific study. My mother-in-law is Edith, queen of Watermelon Country*, so my views of this event are skewed by my perception of her love for The Watermelon Festival.) And that kind of excitement is fun for me to be around. So I'm excited about this weekend!



*No, she's not really the Queen. There's one of those, and she'll be riding high on her parade float on Saturday morning. I'll be there to see her. :)

Labels: family

Once upon a time, we had puppies. (Actually it was last October.) They were super cute. And super messy. And they all left the house by the first of January.

This little one is Biggums.

He belongs to Philip & Courtney.

Courtney bought him as a surprise for Philip for Christmas. She wanted "one like Rosie" -- small.
I'd say we gave her the closest thing to Rosie that we could possibly have given. They came over for dinner and brought Biggums with them last night. And it was kinda difficult to tell them apart!

Labels: dogs, photo

(Maegen and Suzanne helped too.)




Our friend Greg painted the house for us a couple of months ago. He did a great job and the color turned out great! (Kyle picked it out. You can compare it to the old color - the color of the door. We're waiting on a pressure washer to be delivered very soon and then Kyle will take care of the door.)

Also, the lily. Just for good measure.

Labels: flowers, home, photo, Work in Progress

• The mulch is purchased, but remains in a big pile in the front yard.
• The weeds in the flowerbed are GONE!
• The new ceiling fan is in operation and looks lovely.
• My dad bolted the dishwasher back to the counter. (He undid it and left it that way a couple of months ago when he was working on it. I finally remembered to get some washers so we could fix it. He did it for me last night. Nice.)
• Is it possible that that's all we got done last night? That list seems so short! But, alas, I think that is it.
  

And I woke up this morning to this:

These pictures are pretty terrible, but it was so humid outside that my lens kept fogging up. And then the sun was so bright, I couldn't see my light meter. But, they're flowers. They're pretty anyway.

Tonight, my mom is going to help me put down some landscape fabric (finally!) and then ... the mulch! Yay!

Labels: flowers, home, photo, Work in Progress

For my whole life, my dad has worked in plants and mills in very "blue-collar" jobs. The lingo I've picked up from him is that when he does his job correctly (keeping machines running), "productivity" is up and that's great for the whole company. Basically, my dad is the hero of Mead WestVaCo these days -- and Georgia Pacific before that. Or at least that's what I like to think. :)

Productivity is definitely up at the Polk house these days. I was talking to Kyle's mom this morning and I told her that I finally feel like we're adults in a house and not a couple of kids who have no idea what they're doing owning a home.

Let me not fool you. We still have no idea what we're doing. We're just getting better at figuring out who to go to when we have questions.

This series of much-needed home-improvement started last November when our roof finally got the attention it required. (Don't know if I've said thank you to the right people enough for that. Don't know if I could.) So when spring rolled around, we got the outside of the house pressure washed and painted. And the difference was amazing!! One last step (the front door) and the painting will be finished, and the outside of the actual house will be finished.

So we turned our attention to the yard shortly thereafter. We trimmed a tree. I planted flowers. Kyle cut back all the azaleas and other shrubbery in the front yard. And now all I have left to do is finish digging weeds (for the 76,135th time) and mulch. And that's happening tonight. And there's talk of a mailbox. We'll see what happens.

On Saturday, we went to Home Depot. (sings: "Thank you, George Bush, for the stimulus package money that you gave me" to the tune of Thank You, Jack White.) We got some new blinds for the dining room/kitchen/living room on Saturday. And we hung them and dusted the window sills better than they'd been dusted in a while. And tonight my dad's coming over to help Kyle replace a broken ceiling fan/light. We've replaced light fixtures before, but the wiring in a ceiling fan is a bit different. Plus, my dad likes to help out. So why not let him?

It may not be painting an entire house in a week by yourself, but it's productivity. And I like it.

Labels: home, Work in Progress

There's this episode of The Office where, in her talking head, Pam said, "I get ten vacation days a year. And I try to hold off taking them for as long as possible. And this year I got to the third week in January."

I empathize. Vacation in 20 days!

We're not doing anything 'fancy'. With gas prices as ridiculous as they are, who can afford to? So we're just going to stay around here. Maybe go camping for a couple of nights. Do some cool stuff around Charleston. And -- most importantly -- not go to work. Can't wait.

Journey Groups (small groups at our church) are taking a break for a few weeks. So we all decided that on Sunday evenings for the in-between time we're going to go out to eat together after we tear-down. They're calling this "After Hours" and last night we all ate together at Zaxby's.

And then after that, I discovered all the hours that are between the hours of Sunday night and Monday morning. You know how you go to sleep on Sunday night and wake up and - voila! - Monday morning?

Not so for me. Not last night at least. I laid in bed for an hour or so and tossed and turned. I could tell Kyle wasn't really able to rest, so I finally took my pillow and a blanket and headed for the couch. I turned on the TV, thinking that something brainless would lull me right to sleep. Once again, not so. I finished three episodes of the Gilmore Girls. It was almost 2 AM. I turned the TV off and just laid there. For over two hours. Wide awake.

Zaxby's tea should come with a warning label! And since it doesn't, here's my warning: Don't drink two glasses of it if you want any rest at all. I mean, I've had Starbucks coffee closer to bedtime and gotten more rest than I did last night!

Also, random aside. A lady in my office just touched my butt. So uncomfortable. Granted, she was just commenting about the bird that is embroidered on my pocket, but ... still. Inappropriate.