At Considerable Cost

It's divided the state.   The other side will have hell to pay.   They have no idea what they've started.  These were the words we heard after the pink tennis shoes, after the protests, after the state troopers.   Today, the bill has been signed and my Facebook feed is full of the news announced after the signing: our local Planned Parenthood will close its doors for good.    Division, controversy, protest: as a child of the deep south, specifically the Delta, these ideas are not new to me.    They are the stuff of history at my doorstep and seen from the window of every drive we made in any direction from our Louisiana farm.   They are the root of the scars, visible and invisible that still mark the land and people of my homeland.   They are the root of the wounds which still flare at times. In the Delta, slavery, segregation, desegregation, racism, race realtions are not distant history and they are not abstr...

First picture It's just not possible.   It's not possible that it's been seven years since Aunt Betty (Mama's older sister) drove from Austin on the 4th of July to stay with Emmeline.   It's not possible that seven years ago,  I checked into the hospital for labor induction on the 5th of July.   It's not possible that my tiny little baby girl is now the curly-haired seven-year old who's sitting beside me looking at her baby pictures as I type. 4-D ultrasound: first glimpse of our baby girl Big Sister met Clare for the first time. Aunt Betty with Clare The world's best OB/GYN holding Clare It's not possible that I got through a delivery without Mama being in the waiting room, waiting to hold a new grandchild.   It's not possible that Aunt Betty, Nancy, and Leslie all stepped in, not to take Mama's place, but to help lessen the void left which I felt especially after having Mama there for Emmeline's birt...

Sleeping children: few things are sweeter.   These pictures of my sweeties deserved their own post.   The beauty of napping after swimming:

Before move-in I found out the weeds between the pavers LIKE salt.   I poured salt between the squares and the weeds have thrived! The ceiling fan was white and rusted, so I just painted it black.   It worked perfectly well; there was no reason to replace it. It's been nearly two-and-half years since we moved into this house.   It's taken almost all of that time to get our back porch together.   And it's not a large porch.   The poor place has been a dumping ground for tools and toys some of that time.   I made several attempts to pretty it up, but each time, something fell apart or I got lazy about keeping it together. We had a mild spring and June this year.   It gave me the opportunity and motivation to get outdoors and spruce up some areas which had been neglected.   My back tells me I overdid it a bit, but that's another story.   In addition to front flowerbeds and the front...

We have depended upon my iPhone for pictures almost two years now.   Our point-and-shoot digital camera was on its last leg before a final drop sent it to the camera graveyard.   The iPhone was fine until all my photos disappeared (most were saved elsewhere) and I was no longer able to take photos outside of Facebook (sometimes) and text-messages.   I just didn't want to spend another unnecessary dime, so I was taking pictures within text messaging and sending them to Joey.   Then, I would save them on his phone and e-mail them to my inbox, where I could download them.  Finally, I remembered that it had been a very long time since we cashed in any credit card cashback/bonus points.   When I started looking up our balances, I realized that over the years, we had built up enough points to buy a nicer camera with no extra money out-of-pocket.   We even had enough to buy a 32 GB memory card.   I was so excited!...

Following her path of doing nothing in a typical manner, with just two weeks until her seventh birthday, our Clare Bear lost her first tooth.   The new tooth was already coming in, along with a new one next to it.   The second tooth came out two nights ago.   Quite a bit of excitement for a little girl who watched her classmates losing teeth all year!