Hey. Come here often?

Oh, man that is a genius title.  I realize that by typing this I've just made it totally corny and lame, but I don't care.  I.  AM.  SO.  FUNNY.

 So, it's National De-lurking week.  De-lurk by leaving a comment, wouldja?  If you don't, I'll send the monsters under your bed to eat you.

Decisions, decisions.

Bryan's brother, Derek, is a terribly good photographer.  By "terribly good" I mean that every single picture of his I've seen looks like it belongs in a huge, shiny book that costs a fortune and should be set on a rich person's coffee table.

Yeah.

I'm not even a kind-of-decent photographer, but I totally blame it on my camera.   My tiny little piece-of-crap-half-the-time-the-pictures-are-fuzzy- no-matter-what-setting-it's-on camera.  You know the one.

So I want a new camera, and I'm going to get one.  And I really had my heart set on a Nikon D50, or 70, or hell! Even 80! Wahoo!  Because I've seen so many incredible pictures taken with them, and I want a really great camera, and you know, I'm totally rolling around in hundred dollah dollah bills.

Well, Bryan asked Derek what his thoughts on the Nikon were, and Derek recommended this other camera, a Canon (oh, rivalry!) with this weird name, EOS Rebel XT something-or-other that sounds like some sort of SUV.  And Derek totally knows photography, and equipment, and since he knows what the hell he's talking about I feel like maybe I should follow his advice.

And now I'm torn.  I mean, it's not like I've seen (in person) either of these cameras, or held them, or used them, or anything. And it will be awhile until I can afford either one.  But the Canon is cheaper, which means I'll be able to afford it sooner than the Nikon, and Derek says it has all kinds of different lenses (whee!), whereas the Nikons don't have quite so many.  And the Canon whatever-whatever has good reviews, and I mean, it's not like I'm going to be taking professional portraits, or doing wedding photos, or anything.

But I don't know.  I have this strange loyalty/attachment/fixation with the Nikon.  I don't know if I can settle for the Canon.  Like I'd almost rather just get the Nikon D50, instead of the souped-up Canon with the lift kit and fat tires.  Ya know?  Maybe I'm just being weird.

Any thoughts or opinions on what I should do when, in 100 years, I have the money to choose? 

She's pretty fly, yo.

Yeah, I know. After viewing the video, that's a pretty lame post title. And, I know the video is kind of crappy quality, and hard to see. But I edited it! And put it to music! So it's way fancier than it could have been!

History

Yesterday was a pretty big day for me. We've lived here for several months now, but there are things I wanted to see, and places that I wanted to go, but I had no idea where to start. There are so many places that I remember from my childhood, but I didn't know how to get to any of them, and most places (like the cemetery where my Nanny is buried) aren't located on a map.

So we went on a very personal sight-seeing tour. The first stop was my (great) Grandma Bonnie's house. It looked very much like I remember, but the house seemed smaller, and the driveway seemed less steep. It smelled exactly like I remember, though. We weren't able to go inside, but just being there and walking around was enough.

After that we went to the cemetery where my Nanny, Grandma Bonnie, and Aunt Sherry are buried.  That was... well.  Emotional.  Good, in a heartbreaking way.  While we were there, after we caught our breath and could see through our tears, we walked around the rest of the cemetery for a bit, and then I started to remember a trip I had made as a girl.

We had gone to this tiny little cemetery on the side of a hill, and I remember that I was old enough to be bored as hell, and young enough to be completely unaware that it was disrespectful to step on the graves.  I was remembering this out loud to my mother, who instantly said, "Oh, right.  The family cemetery by the old homestead."

Homestead?

As it turned out, I learned a lot about my family that I didn't previously know.  For instance, we have an old homestead, where my mom and my uncle used to go when they were little.  Great Grandma Edna and her family lived up there, and Grandma Edna is buried in the tiny cemetery.  My mom asked if I wanted to see it (of course I did) and warned that the road might be pretty rough.  My dad had his truck, though, and I was not about to pass this up.

Saying that "the road might be pretty rough" was an understatement.  The road is long, with very sharp switchbacks.  Logging trucks have  packed the dirt down some, but with recent rains it's a muddy mess.  It took us a good 25 minutes to get up there by vehicle, and I kept asking my mom, "So, um, they lived up here?  Like, on purpose?  Why so far from the town?  How long did it take to walk this hill?  Why would they do that?  Why?"  You can say "self sufficient" until you're blue in the face.  After travelling that road, I can't imagine walking it.  Or riding a horse up there.  Or, you know.  Walking it.  On purpose.

The road and surrounding areas are devastated by the logging, but luckily the homstead and the family cemetery are completely intact.  We don't know how long that's going to last, though, so my dad made noises about finding out who owns that land now.  I don't know what his intentions are other than preservation, but I hope it hasn't been sold to a lumber company.

We made the trek from the homestead lot to the family cemetery by foot.  The sun was going down, and it started to get incredibly cold.  The road was muddy as hell, and I thought I was going to fall on my ass about twenty times.

But.
 
It was so worth it.  To see a piece of my family history, to be somewhere that I remember visiting as a kid, to see names of people that are my past; people my mom remembers when she was a little girl.  It's absolutely priceless.

We're going to go back soon, and take the girls, and the cycle begins again. 

(click on the photo to see the slideshow) 

What a liar!

One of the hardest things about being out and about for the holidays, and spending so much time away from home, is that Charlie doesn't tend to sleep well.  I mean, she'll sleep just fine, at home, in the room, in her own bed, thankyouverymuch, but other than that?  Suck.

On one of our recent jaunts to Charleston, we decided to have a spontaneous stop-over at my grandfather's house, so OF COURSE we didn't bring Charlie's bed.  Luckily, just that one time, she fell asleep in her carseat.  I knew our luck wouldn't last, though, and I didn't want to push it.

The next night, we stopped at a store and my parents bought a bed for Charlie to keep at their house, just in case.  So, we felt safe staying there for the night, because we knew we had that child cornered.  CORNERED.  Nothing you can do, baby, when you have A BED!  GO TO SLEEP!

Interestingly, with as much as Charlie is a complete snugglebug, she has never wanted to sleep in bed with us, or be held while sleeping.  In fact, I think I've gotten her to fall asleep on me a total of one whole time -- that's it.

At my parent's house that night, we put her in her bed, and things seemed to be going swimmingly, until a floorboard creaked and Charlie woke up.  I pulled her in bed with me, knowing I was in it for the long haul, KNOWING there was no way that child would go to sleep with me.

Guess what?  She totally did.

She snuggled up to me, head on my chest, and promptly fell asleep.  (And what is it about babies and kids that when they fall asleep they instantly gain 15 pounds and their core temperature rises 70 degrees?)  She actually slept, the whole night, in bed with us, alternately snuggled up to one of us, or laying in the middle of the bed, sprawled all over the place.

If it wasn't so damn adorable, I'd kick her for being a jerky little trickster.