#57 Civil Rights Trail (Birmingham, Alabama)

Do you guys have that person out there that just always seems to root for you?  Well I am lucky enough to have many.  I spent last weekend with one of my biggest cheerleaders.  She always backs me...especially when it comes to this blog and my 1000 Places to See.  She is my kindred spirit and I love her.

My family spent a short weekend with her family in Birmingham, Alabama.  It is a town that I've never seen and her cousin happened to be graduating from Samford with a pretty major degree.  They were all kind enough to welcome my kid and husband and myself to the celebration.

Traveling with kids kind of exhausts you, but Natalie knowing that I had an agenda made it happen.  The kids were kind of happy, we had a little extra time, all seven of us piled in our cars and we showed up a tad bit late to the church for a tour.

The church I'm referring to is the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.  You know those photos with the fire hoses and dogs attacking?  Well that happened right in front of this church.  It was real and it is sad.  The even sadder part is that those pictures aren't even what puts this church on the map.  There was a bombing that killed four very young and innocent girls.

Our group showed up very late.  Natalie and I took the elevator up to the sanctuary not realizing that they had already begun and we made such a huge ruckus as we entered the tour.  As we uncomfortably walk in with our small children, the reverend was already in the middle of his tour and  immediately welcomes us and asks us to have a seat without hesitation. Kent and Adam took the stairs and quietly joined us.  This tour is quite long and they even show a documentary video about the history of the tour.  As anyone with kids would expect, my child got a little rambunctious and I was in my own internal "keep the kid quiet stress" and I picked him up and started carrying him out of the sanctuary quickly and the man speaking insisted that I have a seat and that my child wasn't bothering anyone.

I just felt so incredibly welcome in a place where people came to meet and try and figure out how they were going to fight for the right to feel welcome in their own home.

Thanks Nat for rooting for me.

Road Trip

I'm looking forward to my road trip to Texas next week with Great Aunt Linda!!

Something to be said...

Something needs to be said about this... Although I'm not sure what.

Crushed!

In high school, people used to tell me all the time that I was a "natural athlete".  Little did they know what I was truly a natural at.  I will have you know that I found my true calling in life and it is Candy Crush.  I know, I know, you all play it and think your pretty good, but I have news...I'm a natural.

I simply impress myself everyday, all day, at how good I am.  I'll have you know that I didn't even put this game on my phone because I know myself well enough that I tend to have an addictive personality.  Lindsay is the culprit. She came for Christmas, she installed it on my phone and it has been bliss ever since.

Here's the problem, I have to get a new phone.  I will not be able to transfer my obsession to my new phone. I just passed level 305 and I cannot start again from the beginning...I just can't.  I have decided that this will be the end.  I'm crushed.  I am having a little anxiety about this and I don't know what I'll do with all my down time. Maybe I could clean, nah.  Get back into quilting...maybe.   Blog, I hope.  Read, possibly.  I guess we will see. I have about a week or two with my old phone and I plan on getting as far as I can.

I would like to thank Linds for putting this wonderful game on my phone and I would like to thank Candy Crush for existing.  This affair has been a real boost to my self esteem.

One question, what does it mean when I close my eyes that I see Candy Crush?

Who Knew?

Before becoming a mom, I knew there were going to be a lot of things that I wouldn't anticipate, but one thing in particular caught me by surprise.  I'm not really sure how it happened or how to fix it.  Somehow, after birthing my beautiful baby boy into the world, I have completely lost the ability to park...

I'm not talking about real close to the line.  I'm talking about being completely over the line.  I have to try to correct it once and sometimes even twice.  I don't know if I'm over compensating the space needed to get him in and out of the car.  All I know is it is real bad and real embarrassing.  

The sad part of this picture is that I took this after I had already tried correcting the parking, had gone in to have lunch, then returned to the car.  This is as good as it gets people.

Mom of the Year!

This year I gave Rhett a special Halloween treat.  I locked him in the car... with the car running...at Kent's office...in front of Kent's co-workers...Yay me!    He didn't even notice.  He was playing with a lollipop with plastic wrap on it that he is entirely too young for.  

Happy Halloween from the cutest little dragon ever!

Here I am

I used to love blogging.  I did it all the time.  It was fun, something to look forward to, and I wanted to share my life with my friends and family since I live so far from most of them.  It was such a great outlet and gave me something to focus on.

Then all of the sudden, after a year and a half of trying, I was pregnant.  It was like I was hit by a truck.  The only "glow" I had was a shade of green from all the nausea.  Somehow 16 hours of sleep a day didn't seem like enough.  I was on one set of steroids because, due to my Lupus, my white blood cell count plummeted.  This steroid contributed to my 60+ pounds that I packed on during the pregnancy.  I had to start buying the pint size ice cream tubs because I had to limit myself somehow...I had no control when scooping my own bowl.  I don't think I exercised once during the entire 8 months that I was pregnancy.

Then the sweet little precious came unexpectedly 5 weeks early...during hurricane Isaac at a hospital an hour away from our house.  Kent was back and forth because I was in the hospital for over a week.  The entire experience was just so traumatic and I feel like I'm finally moving past it.  But we are definitely one and done kind of family.

Back to the blogging.  I was very determined to not change the direction of my blog towards baby, baby, baby.  But then I am finally realizing that after staying at home with him for over a year, what the hell else do I have to talk about.  I have to include him in my blog, otherwise there will be no blog.

I want to be clear.  I am so happy to have Rhett and he brings a certain light to my life that is inexplicable.  I have just had a hard time figuring out how to be myself while being a mom at the same time.  I used to be the this independent person that was constantly on the go...trying to figure out my next trip, but having a kid reels you into a world of limited freedom and a sometimes an overwhelming sense of responsibility.  Those were the two aspects of parenthood that I hadn't considered before.  I hadn't planned on stopping my active life, I was going to continue working, I was just going to squeeze him into it somehow.  After many sicknesses throughout his first year, I realized that I had to slow down.  I'm still adjusting.

I do, however, want to return to writing again.  It may not be as often as I used to.  The material that I cover may be a little different.   Here I am, the new me. Without the constant encouragement of Natalie, one of my few readers,this blog would have never been possible...and this is why I love her.  With that, I will leave you with a song that reminds me of her.