A Year in the Life

Not to brag, but (actually I am bragging here.  FYI, when someone says 'but' in the middle of a sentence, they are oftentimes contradicting themselves.) I have successfully taught three children how to drive.  Today, I begin my fourth and final journey in teaching the art of driving.  Don't kid  yourself, driving is an art.  Have you seen how half the people drive on the road?  Some of them need a few more lessons.  It's a ready and go kind of day! I used to joke that, with my brother being 7 years younger than I am, my mom just threw him the keys and made him teach himself how to drive.  Henry is 7 years younger than Hopson, and  I've been looking forward to having a chauffeur since Elizabeth turned 16.  I always have to drive everyone everywhere, so I'll be happy to sit, observe and teach from the passenger's side.  (Hopson is turning into his dad & likes me to drive him as well.)  Now I don't have to go to the groc...

...or just on your phone? Dear person driving in front of me this morning, I just wanted to let you know that I thought you were either drunk, which, if that's the case, it's a little early to be hitting the sauce; or you were texting/emailing on your phone.  Yes, I'm talking to you in the light green Honda minivan with the 1B***** tag.  (I have the tag number, but won't post the entire thing.)  You may wonder what great methods I used to figure out what you were doing?  Well, I happened to have my hands at 10 & 2 on the steering wheel & was able to use my sense of sight.  Wow is all I can really say.  (I was extremely focused to get where I was going this morning!)   1st, you kinda sorta ran a stop sign just past the high school.  With around 2K students trying to make their way to school, and half of those children being fairly new drivers, I would say you put your life in serious peril.  And when you went down the hill, yo...

You know the day I'm talking about...the ones that start off bad & just get worse as the day goes on.  Yeah, that has been my day. I should have known it would be bad when I woke up at 3 am.  No real reason.  My eyes just popped open and I was awake.  I tried to tell myself that I really needed the sleep & that I was going to regret it come 3 pm, but sleep was a no go. I did get some exercise in, so that was a plus.  But... Have you ever noticed that there's always a but? Around 6:30 or so I basically lost my mind & logged onto a phishing website through an email on my phone, and entered my credit card numbers.  If I had tried to enter the website from my desktop, like I should have, I would have found out that it was bogus.  Note to self, don't be such a gullible dufus.  I spent HOURS on the phone with pay pal, my credit card company (which I truly love by the way.  Yes, Capital One, it's what's in my walle...

He's ready to be called to the back to begin this thing! So as  you know, Harry & I tried to go get his driver's license this past Monday on his birthday, but they were closed.  Total bummer.  We made plans then to leave our house by 7 am today to go for his driver's test.  I figured with four days worth of 16 year olds wanting to take their driver's test it would be busy.  And...momma was right.  (but then again, when is momma not right?) ;) At 7 am Harry was the third person in line.  Yea!!!  It was cold this morning just in case you were wondering.  We have all the paperwork needed, and I'm sitting in the waiting room while Harry goes in to take care of everything & at this point I'm excited for him.  I know he's going to ace this thing.  Harry's driven a ton.  If he's in the car with me, more times than naught he's the one driving.  He's driven on the interstate at both day and...

Nice dent... Well, I had an interesting day today.  Yes, the children started back to school today & I was going to talk about them going back to school & how I was so excited for them.  But today was another chance to prove what a dork I am. I had just finished exercising for the day.  I'm feeling great.  I'm running some errands, one of which takes me by my friend Tahara's house.  I jump out of the car get what I need (Thank You T!)  and I'm off to get home, take a shower, and get some work done before I have to drive carpool.  The glass was shattered all the way down into the door. You know what I did instead?  I was able to spend some quality time with the mailman after I run into his mail truck.  Yep you read it right.  I backed into the mailman's truck; put a nice big dent in the door; and shattered the window all the way down inside the door.  Nice grace.  I wasn't worried about me, because I can...

I'm in the car all day today traveling, so there isn't a true post.  I'm just trying not to have too many dead bugs or bird poop on my windshield.  I'm also trying not to fall alseep.  I'm road weary & ready to be home.  :) Celebrating Life! ~ashley

You know how you have friends who have random talents, totally obscure, and totally useless talents.  Well, I have a few.  I know you're totally shocked.  One I learned in high school as a freshman & the other I learned in college as a sophomore.  I'm sure I have others but these are the most prominent.  You know when you eat something sour and little drops of spit will fly out of your mouth?  I've heard it called snake spitting, yanging, or gleeking.  No matter what you call it, I can do it at random.  I know, it's gross.  What can I say?  I had a lot of guy friends in high school and they taught me how.  I'll eat something sour and can spit 10-12 times in a row without stopping.  When the kiddos were young they thought it was hilarious, and would ask me to do it a ton of times in a row.  Now they'll just shake their heads because they don't have this wonderful random talent.  I'm glad my momma...

Nothing special today.  I've been on the road since 5:15 am and am somewhat road weary.  I will hopefully have a great posting tomorrow because my sister & I are going to the SanTuck Flee Market!!!  Oh, so much fun to be had.  :)  Celebrating Life! ~ashley

The Art Wurks Chicken Driving...driving...driving.  That's what I did today.  I drove 9 hours today from Tampa to home.  We made good time because I put the hammer down.  We were rockin' and rollin'.  I was a little sleepy at several different times during the drive.  Thank you Coke Zero for being so sweet to wake me up so I wouldn't nod off while I was driving home today.  Nodding off at the wheel bites the bootie.  (I've done it before, but it was a legit nod, I did what I needed to be able to stay awake.  It was super scary.)  Go to Church sign... so life giving, don't you think? I have one complaint...people who live in little towns DO NOT know how to drive.  If you drive a little car & pull in front of me in my Suburban, don't be surprised if see my frownie face looking at you.  Hello, my car is a little heavy & will total your car if you just pull out in front of me.  If you try to tail...

My goodness if Henry had asked me one more time how many more hours we had on our nine hour trip to Tampa I think I might have had to throw my shoe at him.  (And I was wearing a pair shoes with 4 1/2 inch heels.)  Our standard answer whenever we go somewhere and a child asks how much longer we have, no matter how close we are, is two hours.  Since we had a nine hour drive time I had to lengthen the time to five hours.  Why is it whenever we're making a long trip somewhere I always feel like the Griswolds in National Lampoon's 'Vacation'? Nine hours is a long time in a car, with four children.  We're making our biannual trip to see my brother and his family.  My nephew, Henry, is five months old & the cutest little chunky monkey you could ever imagine.  Oh, I just want to eat his cheeks.  Elizabeth and I are going to be fighting over him.  Big Hopson had to stay at home and work, so this is just me and the kiddos. H...

 The map of Opelika. My parents grew up in Opelika, Alabama.  It's close to Auburn University for those of you who have never heard of it.  It's just a little southern town in eastern Alabama.  My parents are buried there as well.  The Opelika/Auburn area has grown tremendously in the last 20 years.  Almost to the point where I have trouble remembering where everything is.  I was driving through Opelika today on my way home & wanted to go by the cemetery.  No, I don't think it's morbid, I'm not in the area often, and wanted to go by.  I haven't been there in at least 12 years.  Things have changed so much I couldn't find it.  I was a little upset.  You know when you get your mind set on something and then you can't follow through?  It nags at me until I can't stand it. I'm going to do some virtual mapping on the computer to see if I can find it.  I know what it looks like in my mind...

And no that's not babysitting.  I wish, then I might be making some money.  I spent 6 hours driving today.  Yuck.  I'll be spending more time next week in the car.  The next month is going to be kinda crazy. We are trippin' in out over the next few weeks.  (or at least the children and I are.  Hopson will be working when we go to Tampa.)  There are some good and bad things about driving long distances for me.  For the good: There are three of us that will be driving:  Hoppy, Harry & myself.  (Of course big Hop drives when he's with us, but to Tampa, it will just be us three.) Short driving shifts.  Driving 9 hours straight makes me cross-eyed and very sleepy. Great conversations & movies movies movies.  The children will also spend a few of the hours reading, and a few hours watching movies.  We may throw a few games in there too, it just depends. For the bad: I get sleepy when I drive....

Well, today we had a flat.  It was totally not fun, and Harry yelled at me like I did it on purpose.  Have you ever had to drive 10 miles an hour?  It's really hard & people behind you do not like it.  I had to pull a trailer to a shop when we left the lake this weekend.  I normally don't pull the trailer.  I can, but I don't really like to. I was on the phone, trying to get some work done when we left the house.  (some people call that multi-tasking, I call it motherhood)  I was driving on a 2 lane road, which was narrow by the way, and ended up popping one of the trailer tires.  We had been on the road less than 5 minutes.  Great!  This was when Harry yelled at me.  I told him I didn't need his mouth & I didn't do it on purpose.  The only thing that would have made it worse is if I had been standing in an ant bed.  Luckily I wasn't. We decided to ride to a gas station which was a few ...

Our high school is getting ready to make the school bigger by adding another academic wing...again.  It feels like they just finished with the construction of H wing last year.  You know what adding on means?  Yea, limited parking for students!  (that is meant to be said uber sarcastically)  Seniors are guaranteed a parking spot, all 451 of them, and only 75 of the juniors will get a spot.  About half of the seniors will be parking in the 'junior lot' and the lucky half will be in the 'senior lot'.  There haven't been enough spots for sophomores to park once they turn 16 anyway, so it doesn't affect them at all.  But, ouch, that hurts if you're a junior parent, and you were counting your child driving themselves to and from school.  It's every 17 year old's dream to be dropped off at school by mommy.  NOT! We live 1/4 mile from the school.  When mine are freshmen and sophomore...

There's no picture today & this posting is on the serious side  Earlier this year I posted how life could change in a moment .  How we were reminded of that today.  We had two lacrosse games out of town, and the fields were about one and a half hours from our hometown.  No big deal right?  Normally yes, but not today. Today we encountered something horrible.  It reminded me of how quickly life can change.  Traffic had started backing up, so of course we're thinking there was an accident in front of us.  I just thought of what a hassle it was at first, but then my line of thinking changed.  As we came upon the wreck, I realiezed it was much worse than I had originally thought.  It looked to be a one car accident.  The car had flipped, burned, and there was a young woman laying in the middle lane not moving.  We later found out that there was someone else in the car and at least one person was life flighted to the...

We have had to get rental cars over the years, and have been fortunate to never had a problem with them.  But for some reason this past week we have made up for that in spades.   It's not the end of the world kind of problems, just somewhat of a pain. We got our car through Hertz, a national company with a good reputation.  They gave us a brand spanking new Dodge Grand Caravan minivan; there were only 680 miles on it for the love.  It had new car smell.  I love new car smell.  New car smell doesn't last with four smelly children.  I would have been happy to hang out in the van, it smelled that great, and for a minivan it was pretty cool, and had a smooth ride. Two nights ago Hopson & I went out to dinner, and while we were coming home we hear this flopping sound coming from the left front of the car.  A flopping sound is never good.  It's 11:15 pm, which is way past our bedtime.  We...

Harry jumps at the chance to drive anywhere .  Tonight, we did a milk run and while at the grocery store Harry saw a sign for boiled peanuts.  Of course he asked for some, because in his mind, the worst thing you could say is no, and you just might say yes.  Well, tonight I said yes.  Rewind a little over 15 years ago...When I was pregnant with Harry, Hopson & I went to the LSU/AU game, and I ate a lot of boiled peanuts.  For you AU fans, that was the game where The Barn burned down.  We could see the flames from the stadium.  Anyway, I was so swollen from eating so many peanuts I felt like a water balloon, and I'm pretty sure I looked like one too. Back to today...Harry was so excited to get his peanuts.  I told him that if he liked them that much we could make some homemade ones in the crock pot.  He just smiled.  After the grocery run we stopped to fill up the car & while we waited we broke open the peanuts...

...in the blink of an eye.  A mom driving carpool, just an ordinary everyday occurrence.  Probably talking to her child about their day: who they played with, and how did they do on their spelling test.  Did you get to play outside, or was it raining during your recess time?  Did you eat your snack?  All your lunch?  Yea, it's Friday! ...in the blink of an eye.  Going around a corner, a very sharp corner, not realizing the guy coming around on the other side may be distracted, or texting, or talking on his phone, or maybe he lost control because the streets are wet. Notice the side airbag has depolyed ...in the blink of an eye.  You realize his car has smashed into yours, luckily it's in the front and not on the side where your 1st grader is sitting.  All side air bags have deployed.  You don't care a whit about yourself, you just have to get into the back to make sure your child is unharmed.  A little shook up, but physicall...

We now have 1 licenced teenage driver & 1 with a driving learner's permit!  I have a chauffeur for a year.  Yea for him & for me!!!  Harry passed his learner's permit test today.  He said it was an easy test.  He was confident...I was nervous.  I know it's silly, but I always get nervous when my children are doing/trying out for things.  What can I say, I'm their mommy.  When he poked his head out to get me so I could pay, I asked him if he passed & he gave me a look that said 'really mom, are you serious' and said, "of course I passed".  Harry said the test was a joke.  Here is his favorite question: What is the most important safety feature in a vehicle?  A.  the dashboard  B.  the seat belt  C.  the seat Yes everyone, these are the kinds of questions we are asking our future drivers.  Yikes!  Luckily, I like teaching kids to drive, so he'll get a lot of time b...