I hope y'all have been well. It's been a lottle crazy round here.We went to GA for Thanksgiving and came back. We got to see pretty much everyone and a good time was had by all. I got to do a little bit of art with Eve. We climbed Stone Mountain (a first for the boys) and went to Waffle House. You know, to complete the GA experience.

I also went crazy. I don't think I'm back from that yet.

But I knew you missed my blogging and I thought I would share a few things that made my week more interesting.

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Conversations with Pickles

Jax (a buddy): Pickles has a secret. He said he's looking at naked ladies on the computer.
me: WHAT???? PICKLES! GET DOWN HERE NOW!!!
(imagine the sound of an alephant on roller skates coming down the stairs)
me: Pickles, why did Jax say you were looking at naked ladies on the computer?
Pickles: Oh, I just told him that so he'd go away. We were really looking at giant millipedes.
me: next time Honey try to be a little less creative and shocking when trying to get someone to go away, ok?

*note: Pickles is an incredibly honest kid. He does not look at naked women online. Apparently, however, we need to work on other issues.

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Pickles: I can't go to sleep
me: why not?
Pickles: Because my radio won't work and I always go to sleep listening to my stories.
me: Tell a story to yourself. Out loud.
Pickles: I said everyone else is asleep and they won't think my stories are interesting anyway.
me: I said say them to YOURSELF
Pickles: Well, I don't find them that interesting either.

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We have a snake. She's a ball python named Medusa. She's a good snake and the kids think she's interesting. Medusa eats mice. It's the circle of life, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, mice really aren't that cute, Mickey excluded of course. It was time for Medusa to eat again 4 days ago so I bought a mouse. I put the mouse in the cage with the snake. The mouse did not get eaten. The mouse did however, get named Pancake. So Pancake and Medusa are roommates. At least until Medusa is done shedding and decides that she actually is hungry. I'll keep you updated.

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Everything here is white. Our house is 109 yrs old, as are many of the surrounding houses. Most of them are painted very pale colors. Pale houses and their yards are covered in snow here. The clouds are heavy and full of snowman seeds. Everything is bright and fairly monochromatic. And it reflects all light. Last night, at midnight, it looked like it was dusk.

I forget about that here. 27 years of being raised in GA is still ingrained in me. Winter should be 60-70 degrees. Scarves should be bought based on their cuteness, not their heat conserving abilities. The sky should bright blue and the trees should stay green. Pansies should bloom.

Not in the Midwest. But I'm OK with that this winter. I'm not sure why; maybe I'm beginning to bloom (like a pansy - insert your own joke here) where I'm planted. Maybe it's wearing me down. Let's go with the blooming, shall we?

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy...

I might be a Redneck because:

1. I've traded a truckful of firewood for 2 goats
2. I've written "Happy No More Probation Day" on a cake in icing (It wasn't for James, Mom)
3. I've taken an off-roading ride to try to get labor started
4. I've hunted snipes
5. I shot a rifle before I was 10
6. I was pregnant at the same time as my mother-in-law (which also might just mean I'm Mormon)
7. I'm related to someone named LuAnn (who also has 3 personalized license plates with her name on it)
8. I have killed fire ant piles with gasoline, many times
9. I have burned Christmas trees in the backyard, many times
10. I have swum naked in a creek, as an adult
11. I have used an M-60 (not the gun, the firework) to clear out a toilet
12. I've set up lawn chairs to watch possible tornadoes
13. I've camped outside without a tent
14. I've driven my truck across rivers
15. I've tubed down rivers several times
16. At times, I crave Waffle House
17. I used to hang out a house belonging to a guy called Hoss
18. I've eaten kudzu in several different dishes
19. I used to wake up to the sound of roosters every morning
20. I've tasted moonshine

You may have heard of a couple of these before, and there are probably many other things I've forgotten, but that's all y'all get today.

For the record, my mother is NOT a redneck. She would probably want me to clarify that.

So there I was, minding my own business...

I got up and took the kids to school today. Again, I marveled that any mother would be dressed and make-upped and ready to go as I was still in my jammies with a hoodie thrown on. It's pretty dreary today, as it will be nearly all winter. I came home and began earnestly procrastinating. I still have my jammies on, and I'm following links from friends' blogs and I realized that I MISS HOME! An emotional tsunami of homesickness washed over me. I was totally not expecting it because I've really been having a good time with my friends here. I lead a beading class at Soup-er Saturday last weekend, I've helped do Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts this week, and I got to hang out with two of my favorite people here yesterday afternoon. So where the crap did all this homesickness come from? My morning would not have been much different in Gaw-ga, but the whole experience would have changed. Mornings in GA start with lots of animal noises. *insert farm/redneck jab here* F'real doh. Even if you live in a neighborhood, someone on the next street over has chickens and those little buggers start cockling and doodle dooing before the sun comes up. And all the little birdies in the trees too.

-side story-
when I was about knee high to a grass hopper, I came out of my room one morning and asked Mommy what that noise was. It's the birds, Shelle, they're singing! Isn't it beautiful? No. Tell them to BE QUIET. See? I've been pleasant my whole life :)

Ok, back to my wallowing. You can also hear various neighborhood dogs barking. Everyone pretty much has a dog. I'm pretty sure that phrase "Everybody's brother and their dog" had a Southern source. We even had goats in our backyard one time (we traded them for firewood from trees we had taken down) and those guys would be making all kinds of racket too. Is the scene set? Good. There is also sometimes a light fog in the woods coming up off the creeks/ponds/lakes that are everywhere. Most neighborhoods/trailor parks have at least one creek running through the back of them. Because copperheads have to have somewhere to live. This fog doesn't usually last that long, but if you're up early enough to see it, then you'll also be up early enough to smell the clay while it's still all wet with dew. I wish I could bottle that smell. Pine needles, red clay, and something so deep down and earthy that it defies description. Well, I'll try to describe it anyway. Like the footprints of native people, the clean sweat of numberless field workers, and the blood shed from too many wars. Too literary?

The sky in the mornings starts with a pale yellow and you can almost watch it turn blue. A blue that doesn't happen anywhere else. You don't get much sky there, so it's concentrated. Here in the Midwest, the sky's so big that the blue is all stretched out. In the deep south though, the rolling hills covered in trees sort of blocks out a lot of the sky. When we moved here 3 yrs ago, I would feel agoraphobic if I was up on a bluff, because you can almost see more than 180 degrees of sky! Too much, too much my brain would scream! I'm OK now, just in case you were worried about my brain screaming.

So, d'ya think that writing all this down will help me feel better? I prolly should still call some folks today just to get a Southern fix. It makes me a little sad that when people meet me and find out where I'm from that they say, Wow! I had no idea, you don't even have an accent. Well, I haven't been steeping it for the last 3 years, thanks very much. Don't worry, I'm sure it will come back when we go home.

So I'll just click my red converse (I'm not really a glittery shoe type of girl) together 3 times and say...
there's no place like the ATL
there's no place like the ATL
there's no place like the ATL


PS, if you want to see Obama ride a rainbow unicorn go here. Thanks Eve.