Hellooo Christmas!

Dear Santa,

I'm sorry that I've been a little neglectful in my blog posting of late. Surely you haven't missed me. What's that? You have? Oh pooh, you must be kidding! Well then, let me not waste any more time. Here's a list of my top 10 wishes for Christmas, followed by the top 5 most memorable moments of the holiday-season-thus-far. (I'm saving the other 5 for after New Year's.)

I wish for...

10. Energy. Lots and lots of it. Right now, my beautiful but comfy floral chair has sucked every bit of energy I have. It's my own little rock of kryptonite, right in my den.

9. The writers' strike to end. Please, oh please, Santa! Can't you make them go back to work? Clash of the Choirs, Duel, Re-runs of VH1's Dumbest Celeb Quotes Ever... Can't you see the havoc that is being wreaked upon our televisions? Oh, wait. I get it! This is a big, fat sign from up above telling me to get OUT of my chair and DO something. I see... Very, very clever Santa.

8. Patience. Starting tomorrow, Santa, you know that I will have to endure three long days of nothing but family. If it were only my family, I'd be happy. But noooo, Santa. There's Christmas Eve dinner, followed by Christmas Day lunch, after which we travel for Christmas Night dinner, only to be awakened the next morning by Day-After-Christmas cheese toast breakfast, and then, the Ultimately Dreaded Lasagna Lunch with the Bakers. Heavens to Betsy.

7. New recipes. How many times can a girl make Forgotten Cookies? Or fudge? I wish for new recipes that are easy, delicious, and whose ingredients can be found at Food Lion.

6. More rain. I am terrified by the drought. Not so terrified that I'm saving water in buckets and milk jugs, granted, but still frightened enough to take shorter showers. Oh, look at that! It's raining right now! Hot dog!

5. More Christmas cards with fewer babies. Don't get me wrong friends, I love your kids. Really I do. But now that everyone has a kid except me, it seems that the only cards I receive are combo birth announcements. "Christmas Came Early This Year! Baby Girl Jones. 6 lbs. 7 oz. August 1st." That's not Christmas, that's summer. Really, people.

4. Another Spears debacle. The only child in the Spears family that has yet to make a complete ass of himself is Bryan Spears, the eldest and apparently wisest of the three. Jamie Lynn's kid has no chance in this world... Wait a minute. Wasn't I just saying that about Brit's kids? Ah, yes... Redneck Spears Cousins: The Future of Hollywood.

3. No in-family arguments this year. I realize it's a tall order, but if poor Brian has to endure another Baker fallout, I'm just not sure he'll make it. I mean, he'll make it, but he'll want to suddenly become an only child. (Okay, so this is MY wish, not his, but you get what I'm saying.)

2. An all-around Baker household weight reduction. I think that, collectively, the four of us weigh as much as a tractor trailer. I'm doing my part, but Lucy, Charlie and Brian have yet to see the benefits of cutting back. The bellies on those felines are out of control. Time to rein it in.

1. Health. For Dad, for Frank, for myself, for everyone I know and love. That's not asking for much, is it?

And now, the Top 5 Most Memorable Moments of the Holiday Season Thus Far:

5. Dad bought gifts for Mom early. Like right after Thanksgiving. This is memorable for several reasons, but mainly because the tables have turned... He thought ahead and I procrastinated. Now I'm left at the 11th hour to wrap her gifts. There's a lot of them and they're all heavy.

4. The Baker Christmas Tree Disaster. See previous blog.

3. Elizabeth's champagne intake at the Champagne Christmas Brunch. I drank too much, talked too loud (and also too much), and I think I offended some people. Oh well. I'm the only one that entertains anyway, so it's not like I'll be minus an invitation anywhere. Plus, what's a party if no one behaves like an idiot?

2. The Student Services Fish Fry. Up until Thursday, I'd never eaten croaker before. And now I know why. The shrimp were scrumptious, but now I see why Toney's on enough blood pressure medicine to make his eyes look like a crack whore's.

1. And the #1 Most Memorable Moment so far has to be the Annual JCC Christmas Luncheon. I was nervous for weeks, couldn't eat a thing, bought new clothes, sweated and panicked my way through it...and I lost. Granted, I lost to a Vice President, and several people said I was robbed, but still. I am not the recipient of the Outstanding Staff of the Year award. Bollocks. I had grand plans for that $1,000 and I had on a cute outfit to boot. I must say, though, my loser face was really Oscar-worthy. Take that, Susan Lucci!

Finally, 3 Things I'm Most Looking Forward To In 2008:

3. Giving up Staff Development Day. 'Nuff said.

2. Getting closer and closer to my 5% pay raise, aka my master's degree.

1. The endless number of 30th birthdays - including my own! (September 15th. Write it down. Mark it on your calendar. Take vacation and make a trip to SmithVegas to celebrate with me.)

0. (I forgot one!) Ellis' wedding. Even if BB's not in the wedding, we'll still be there to cheer on his very best friend since Andy Griffith.

I don't know what to say

I sat down at the computer this morning to write about my weekend, which has been a comedy of errors. But then the phone rang, and the lives of the people in my family will never be the same.

First of all, my dad's okay. His scan isn't until January, so he has a temporary (hopefully permanent!) reprieve. This has nothing to do with him, but everything to do with cancer. I don't understand why it won't attack people who are evil, who bring nothing good to this world and who only cause pain. Instead, cancer ruins the lives of people who are good and kind and loving. People who have endured their own kind of pain and who have soldiered through. People who still have so much more life to live.

I am almost in tears as I write this. I don't understand why cancer scares, and sometimes kills, the people I love. I don't understand how it leaves us all speechless and terrified, but marches on anyway. It has marched on through the body of a person, very dear to me, who thought that chemo had saved him. Instead, he knows now that he has six months to spend with his wife, son, stepsons and granddaughters. He has six months to get his affairs in order and provide for their lives after his is over. He has six months to do everything he ever wanted to do, but will most likely be too sick to do.

And despite this, despite everything, he kissed my cheek last night, told me I looked lovely and offered to refill my drink. He smiled, he laughed, he joked. Because what else can you do? What else can you say? Hey, good to see you, I have six months. Great party, too bad I won't be here next year.

I shouldn't have, but I called Brian at work to tell him. And now he'll spend the rest of the afternoon reminded of the five years he spent wondering how much longer his own father had. Bernie's six months turned into five years, but that's a lucky statistic; the exception, not the rule. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say to my dad, who is bound to be scared to death to go for his scan, knowing how this one turned out. I don't know what to say to anybody. There are no guarantees.

Thanksgiving was different and smaller. Christmas will be difficult and even smaller than Thanksgiving. But we will spend it with our family, for we would be no other place.

O Christmas Tree

For many years now, Brian and I have secretly made fun of people with artificial Christmas trees. "Crazy!" we said. "Who in the world wouldn't want the smell of a fresh Frasier fir permeating their home? How can it be Christmas if you put your preschool-made ornaments on some plastic tree and call it a day?"

As it turns out, artificial Christmas tree owners may be on to something after all.

Last Friday, after a long week at work for me and a long, well, two days off for Brian, we decided to pick out a tree that we planned to put up over the weekend. We headed to Spanky's, our local tree place that we've been going to since I was a child. Spanky can't be more than five feet tall, but he's got these guys that work for him and have for years - they can handle a big ol' Christmas tree better than BB can handle a pallet of Pepsi.

Anyway, since we're seasoned tree-picker-outers, we headed straight for the yellow tags. Blue tags mean short and somewhat skimpy (think Charlie Brown, but with a little more oomph). Yellow tags mean around eight feet tall and fairly fat. Fat we like, when it comes to Christmas trees. White tags mean 11-12 foot trees - basically trees for people who own old homes and plant to host giant holiday cocktail parties.

So the yellow-tagged trees were all lined up in a row, and it didn't take us too long to find our big, fat, too-tall tree. We pick it out, one of Spanky's little helpers takes it down and saws off a good foot or so from the bottom. (Our ceilings are only so tall, you see.) We take it home, put it in a tub of water and let it drink until Sunday.

In short, our weekend was crazy. The Pepsi Christmas party was Saturday night (I could write a whole other blog about that one), and with everything else we had going on, we didn't get to the tree until 5:00 Sunday afternoon. I don't know about where you all live, but here, it's practically dark at 5. Plus it was raining; cold, wet drizzle and Christmas tree stands don't mix.

First we took the handsaw and sawed off some bottom branches that were in the way of the stand we had. Now granted, we have done this before, but never have we had a tree this big and this heavy. Our stand had screws that you screw into the tree trunk to hold it up, but the tree was so heavy that it just fell right over when we tried to stand it up. Brian had worked all day, I had been in church since God was a boy, and it was all we could do not to cuss this tree up one side and down the other.

All told, it took us three trips to Spanky's, two tree stands, and one kind teenager to help us get this damned tree up in our living room. And, after all of that, we discovered that those bottom branches we sawed off left a few holes...all the way around the tree. It took us til Thursday to calm down enough to decorate the thing, but now that it has rocking horses made out of pencils, candy cane picture frames and cotton ball Santas on it, it's kind of cute. Fat, bright, lopsided and dry, but it's still kind of cute.

Those fake tree owners may have it easy, but they sure don't have good stories to tell. And I'll bet you one thing: when they come home from work after a long day, I bet they don't come inside to smell the scent of a freshly-cut Frasier fir tree telling them that yes, it is Christmastime.

Thanksgiving: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

At the risk of offending anyone who reads this and is related to me, here's the lowdown on the Top 10 terrific events of the 2007 Wellons-Davis-Baker-Woodley-Waters-Dufty Thanksgiving.

10. I made chili, lots of people ate it and no one died. Amazing. Also, I hosted a casual dinner in my new den and no one spilled on the new chair. Again, amazing.

9. Someone found the Thanksgiving Blessing that my grandfather read the year I was born. At the end: "Thank you, dear Lord, for the newest member of our family, little Elizabeth."

8. The subfloors were down in the farmhouse, the appliances were in and most of us were able to sit in the same room to eat. It was glorious to see Dad and Drew toasted for their work. They were proud boys on Thursday, as well they should be.

7. My mother-in-law asked my cousin out on a date. The date never materialized, but still. Enough said.

6. In the middle of the Friday night oyster roast, my parents' next door neighbor found our cat, George, collapsed at the end of their driveway. We put him down Saturday morning and we all cried buckets. The vet gave us a cement impression of his right front paw...incidentally, the one we think he used to slap a deer. Rest in peace with Casey, Sylvester and Pepper, George. You were a great, fierce cat and you will be missed.

5. I think my brother and his girlfriend are getting serious. I think I really like her, and I'm pretty sure my parents are starting to: she cleaned oysters with my dad. Good girl.

4. I snapped at both of my aunts this weekend. It's high time they figured out that while I do respect my elders, I do not answer to them and I am not one of their children. So there. And anyway, I don't know how they confuse me with my cousins. Someone (whose initials are WV and who should know better), told Caroline that it's a good thing someone in the family ended up looking like a model. It's true. Check out the picture below. She's 5'9, 12 lbs., and her legs are longer than my entire body. Yes, we are related, though I understand how that's hard to believe.

3. Shucking oysters is fun. I am good at it, I enjoy it and I'm only sorry that I wasn't the one who found the black pearl in a leftover shell. That was Lindsey, Drew's girlfriend. I suppose it's her prize for putting up with our entire family for 8 hours.

2. Finally, Drew made his world-famous bleu cheese burgers. They are as good as they sound, and they are the perfect for when you've eaten too much turkey, too many pieces of pie and have had so many glasses of wine you've lost count of your family members and you think that Ron White really is funny.

1. For the first time since we've been married, there wasn't a fight over who spent more or less time with whom. We spent equal amounts of time with each family and we managed to get along with everyone. It's a holiday miracle! If only this will last through Christmas...

The picture below is of Bennett, me, Mom and Caroline - after a long, long Thanksgiving Day and entirely too much wine.

Dirty Thirties and The Bachelor

I enjoy making lists. There's something about a list that says, "I'm organized. I really have it together." Despite the fact that in my life this is a total lie, I still compile lists like a crazy person.

1. Brad the Bachelor made the total wrong choice last night. Oh yeah, I watch "The Bachelor." Frankly, I can't help it. It comes on right after "Samantha Who?" which is a fantastic new show and somehow I can't turn the tv off when I should. Either way, Brad sent Bettina home. Baaaad idea.

2. November is, like, totally here already. Why? I'm not ready for Christmas. I'm not ready for all thousand of my friends with November birthdays to turn 30. I'm not even ready for Halloween yet.

3. Speaking of Halloween, Drew throws the greatest Power Tool Pumpkin Carving parties ever. Granted, my pumpkin looked like an alphabet gone wrong when it was supposed to look like a cat sitting on the moon, but whatever. Nobody else on our street even had a jack-o-lantern. So there.

4. Out of the 160 some odd students in our program, 47 are not doing satisfactory work in their classes. I'm not surprised. My informal poll of instructors has shown that out of all the years I've worked here (5, by the way), this crop of students is the worst by far. They're mean, disrespectful and apparently not very bright.

5. Today is Election Day. This reminds me of Election Day last year, when I asked one of my students whether or not she voted. "No m'am," she said to me. "I don't vote for counselors. I only vote because the Sheriff is my cousin and he won already." Wow.

6. I'm anticipating the Holiday Power Struggle to begin this week. My MIL is coming for lunch and I can feel the inevitable question coming, kind of like I can feel a bad hair day right when I wake up. "Are y'all going to come for Thanksgiving?" Ugh, the dread.

7. Who is Sabrina Bryan and why does anyone care that she got voted off Dancing with the Stars? We didn't know who she was before she danced. Why do we care now? Also on my Hollywood radar: the writers' strike and Katie Holmes. So Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert aren't funny enough on their own to write a script for their show? Step up to the plate, boys. And good job, Katie Holmes. You didn't tell anybody you were running in the NY marathon, but you showed up, ran the whole darn thing and then went out in a pantsuit and heels the same night. I knew I liked you.

8. Josie (and apparently her friend Eric) are hosting "Josie and Eric's Dirty Thirty Tiki Bar Hootenanny and Bar/Bat Mitzvah" this Saturday. I can't go, mainly because I'm too boring and don't leave the house to go to the grocery store, much less to Brooklyn. But oh my God does it sound fun. Josie, here's to you, babe. I hope that your Dirty Thirty Tiki Bar Hootenanny and Bar/Bat Mitzvah is everything you hope it will be. And more.

9. Three burning questions I have this morning, in no particular order: 1. Can you freeze a potato casserole? 2. What's too much to spend on Christmas cards? 3. Will Nicole Richie, Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Lopez all have cute babies that can sing?

10. My new chair is here. It is lovely. It is comfortable. It is all things bright and beautiful. I didn't get out of it all weekend, except maybe to go to the bathroom and shuffle some clothes around (to make it look like I was doing laundry). Is it wrong to have that much love for a piece of furniture?

Wishing...from atop a soapbox

Today, as I sat at home battling (again) some sort of respiratory virus, I found myself wishing. This post is not to be confused with Cedric's "wish creed" in "The Original Kings of Comedy," though I do enjoy the wish creed. This wishing is more of the world-peace-Save-Darfur variety.

Early Sunday morning, seven college students died down at Ocean Isle in a tragic fire at the beach house they were staying in for the weekend. It sounds like a weekend we all would have, or did, enjoy in college. Gather all your friends, sorority sisters or fraternity brothers, find a big old house for the weekend, pack coolers and cute clothes, and stock your iPod with tunes fit for a road trip. Spend the day on the beach, spend the night smoking Marlboro Lights and drinking Coronas on the porch. Perfect, right? Not so much.

Seven died. More were injured, after jumping from the second and third stories of the burning house. And it could've been me. Or you, or any one of our family members. Tonight on the news, my doctor's wife was interviewed from her home. She and her husband lost their son in a fire at the Phi Gamm house at Carolina 10 or so years ago. She looked so brave and resolute as she sat next to her son's composite photo. The local news was interviewing her for her take on losing a child in a fire, but also because she is part of a group called the Common Voices Coalition of Six that is advocating for fire safety.

My wish is that we were all advocates for something. Not because we've lost a child, or have seen something we'd rather forget, or because someone guilts us into doing so. I wish that we were advocates because we believe strongly in a better world. I wish that we made time for causes that are important to us. I wish that we could direct money to organizations that do good things for people in need.

But all this wishing is just that: a wish. Because the reality is that we sit in front of the television, or read the newspaper, and we think, "Gosh, that's terrible. Those poor kids and their poor parents. Thank goodness it wasn't me."

Huh?

1. It's raining. Finally. Yay. I don't even mind that my Cole Haans are covered in mud, or that my umbrella is broken. Bring it on.

2. Saturday night is the 4th Annual Power Tool Pumpkin Carving Party. I could not be more excited if I tried!

3. I've gone from having entirely too much to do to all this free time. I do not know what to do with myself, so this weekend I might start wrapping Christmas presents. Or I might start on research for next semester. Or I might not do anything at all. Hmm...

4. Last night I had to search the Internet for a "how-to" on curving grades. It's really more complicated than I thought, but if I don't curve this week's test, these peeps are going to fail study skills. Come on.

5. My hairdresser, aka my anti-child buddy, is sliding down the slippery slope of parenthood. "We're talking about it," she says. Uh huh. She'll be prego in 6 months. I'd bet money on it. And another one bites the dust.

6. I am not 34, or even 32. My students think so, and my work-study thinks so, but 'tis not true. What is true is that I am apparently past due for some wrinkle cream.

7. There are only 10 weeks left until New Year's. This is disturbing to me, though I can't figure out why.

8. I am in love with my new haircut, even though it hasn't gotten rave reviews from anyone else.

9. I watched a rerun of "Friends" this week. I had forgotten how much I adore that show and those people. Perhaps Clara will run into Cousin Courtney this Thanksgiving and I'll have a good story to share.

10. Oktoberfest is cancelled. We didn't sell enough tickets (I blame Relay for Life and Staff Development Day for this) and now BB and I don't get to be K Fed and Britney for Halloween. Highly disappointing.

A farmer's daughter

If you know me, chances are you've heard me talk about "the farm." The farm is our family's land, with a house and a barn, out in the county (read: way out in the country past any signs of life). It's been in our family for close to five generations and all of us hold it very dear to our hearts. Well, some of us more than others, but that's a story for another day.

Anyway, the farm has been through a lot in its time and it shows. The floors have rotted through, the walls have cracks where sunlights peeks inside and more than one animal has met its demise somewhere among those rooms. The time has finally come to do some renovations, and believe you me, it's a task to take on.

My brother and my dad are the "superintendents" of the whole construction process, and they've got two other men that help them out a couple of days a week. I went out there this weekend with my mom to take a look around, and what I saw astounded me. The floors, which I'd seen before, are down to the bare ground underneath the house. Literally when you walk in the house, you step down a foot onto dirt. The beams that support the house, logs that have been split in two, are exposed and you can still see the half-moon shape of the wood. Keep in mind: this house was built in the early 19th century and this stuff is original. The walls have been stripped of sheetrock and whatever else was up there, and they now consist of clapboard planks, also original.

Right now the work is limited to what used to be the kitchen and dining room, separated by an unnecessary wall. The wall between the rooms in gone, which leaves this huge, open space. In the former dining room, sheetrocked ceilings were constructed some time ago, concealing a beautiful pitched roof. The guys plan to keep the pitch, leaving somewhat of a cathedral ceiling. The fireplace in the kitchen is missing a few bricks, but is still in generally good condition and has andirons that I can only imagine are at least a hundred years old.

What's even more amazing than this total transformation of part of the house is that there's no on-site supervisor, no construction crew, no contractor. There's just my dad and my brother, and they've done this incredible thing. I don't know where they learned how to do what they do, and I don't know whether or not they're doing it right, but one thing is certain: they have poured heart and soul and hard work into this house. They have spent weeks out there, only to realize that the job is three times what they thought it would be.

For what do I have this kind of love and dedication? Could I spend every hour of daylight on one dirty, filthy, difficult project and never complain? I could, but only if it were for my family. My dad has said on more than one occasion that his favorite part of this renovation is spending time with my brother. I think my favorite part of this renovation is knowing that I am the daughter and sister of two people who love that farm, that house and that land. Something that lasts through generations is, really, the tie that binds.

Pictures from the mountains

Here are some pics from the trip. Most are of High Hampton, and some are from Hendersonville!


The Lake Cottage...we stayed on the first floor at the back.


Brian with the rickshaw-looking luggage cart.


The partial view of the lake from our porch.


Look who rocks!


Brian coming up the path from the lake.


Someone's arms aren't long enough! A closeup on the porch.


On the patio at the Tavern before dinner one night.


A view of the lake and the mountain behind it, from the back of the Inn.


On Main Street in Hendersonville, after lunch at the old Park Deli.


At Jump Off Rock - check out the wedding going on behind us!


A windy day in downtown Hendersonville.

There's no place like home...or is there?

Yay! Fall mountain trip is over! I never thought I'd be happy to come back from vacation, but there it is. Four days, three nights, a leaky bathroom, crying babies, snoring men and a 6 1/2-hour drive later, we are finally home. For all the bad things we could say about High Hampton there are that many good ones, so I guess I'll leave it at that. Pictures will come soon, and maybe they can do the scenery some justice, though I doubt it. But I will say this: if you ever go, take an alarm clock, a really warm sweater and lots of patience. Also, bring your kids or grandkids. What's that? Don't have any of those? Ohhhh. Probably not the place for you, then.

On to more fun things: white pumpkins! I love them and have really only seen them in Martha Stewart Living (complete with perfect jack-o-lantern faces) or faux versions in the Pottery Barn catalog. Up in the mountains, white pumpkins were everywhere and they looked beautiful. We brought a couple home, and I must say, next to my regular ol' orange pumpkin and my white mums, they make quite the front porch. Plus they were cheap! Can't beat that. Among my other mountain purchases were lots of Christmas presents, hallelujah. During our day trip to Hendersonville, we wandered over to Flat Rock and The Wrinkled Egg, my absolute favorite gift shop in the whole world, which I've been visiting since the 90's. I don't know whether I bought cheap stuff or whether Smithfield really has a high opinion of itself, but I didn't spend nearly what I usually do and I wound up with 7 gifts and two fun Christmas-y things for me. Gotta love that.

Speaking of loving things, Brian Baker fell in love with Hendersonville. So much so that we came home with real estate listings and Pepsi plant information. No, we're not moving. Not today, anyway...but I suppose you shouldn't ever dismiss possibilities, and apparently that's a new one. We rode by the old house, missing its basketball goal and front-yard juniper, but aside from that, not much has changed. Downtown looked spectacular in the fall, as it always does. The high school has freshly-painted "2008" senior stairs and a new fence around the football field. Lots of new development has cropped up, but Jump-off Rock (which BB called "jumping rock" the whole time) and Laurel Park that surrounds it have been spared. On an interesting note, there was a couple getting married at Jump-off when we drove up. I thought it was odd, considering that it was Friday afternoon at 2:30pm, but hey, who am I to say?

All in all, the mountains still felt like home. I guess anywhere you live for a while feels like that, but a little part of me was still sad to leave.

We'll be coming 'round the mountain...

It's Thursday afternoon, and we're drinking afternoon tea in the lobby of the High Hampton main lodge. Brian's watching CNBC on the Inn's only television, and I'm lusting over my WiFi connection that it's only taken two days to get. We're here! And connected! I don't think either of us realized how addicted we are to our technology until we didn't have it.

We left yesterday at 5:30am for Asheville. Both of us were exhausted after Tuesday; Staff Development Day got the best of me (and yay! it wasn't a disaster!) and Brian had class until 10:30pm. But we got up and got on the road, and we were at Biltmore by 10:30am. My, how I'd forgotten the October mountain crowds. Inside the house was shoulder-to-shoulder, all the way up to the 4th floor. (Poor BB tried to calm me down when my claustrophobia turned to full-on panic on a back staircase.) The day was perfect though, cool with not a cloud in the sky. We lunched at the Stable Cafe on some good-but-overpriced sandwiches and checked out all the scarecrows and pumpkins set up for their Harvest Celebration.

Next we were off to High Hampton - a long, windy trip up a mountain past Brevard. By the time we got here, our patience was in short supply, as was the customer service. Today's been much better, but life at High Hampton takes some getting used to. The cottages around the property are off little gravel paths and are both up and downhill, which makes for an interesting trip when you're trying to unload your luggage. There are little handcarts (which look to us like rickshaws, insert Seinfeld joke here) to use, but once you load your suitcases on, they weigh about as much as a car. And then you have to move them.

Our room is in the Lake Cottage, which overlooks a wooded area off the lake. We have a porch with three rocking chairs and, oddly enough, a daybed. What we don't have is an alarm clock, phone, tv or cell service, which we though we could do without...until we got neighbors next door. Originally these cottages were used by the Hampton family and they apparently haven't been changed to accomodate strangers - you can hear everything. At 2:30 am, we heard the infant downstairs crying to be fed. At 3:00 pm, we heard, uh, the bathroom next door. And at 10-minute intervals throughout our stay, the family downstairs goes in and out of their screen porch door - and lets it slam behind them. Suffice it to say, it would be nice to have a little something to drown out the sounds, but that's the price you pay for a "peaceful mountain retreat" I suppose.

All of this is moot though, when you see the lake and the big giant rock-mountain that we don't know the name of. It's absolutely magnificent and we spent 2 hours today staring at it. The property is to die for, and despite being the youngest couple here by, oh, 30-40 years, people are still very friendly to us. Last night at dinner we met the cutest woman traveling by herself and we spoke to her again at breakfast. When we arrived at our table for lunch (all meals are at the same table for the duration of your stay), she had left for us a vase of dahlias she had picked from the HH dahlia garden and a note, saying that she enjoyed meeting us and was sorry her trip ended today. Friendly folks are harder and harder to come by now, sadly enough, and we were glad to meet her if only for a little while.

Off to Hendersonville tomorrow; more to come...

JeoparFeud...and other things

Tomorrow is the dreaded Staff Development Day. So tonight I find myself looking for "limbo-appropriate" music to play during the Field Day Races tomorrow afternoon. Don't ask, it's not that interesting. What is interesting is that there are literally two whole songs in the world to do the limbo to. Seriously. Chubby Checker and Harry Belafonte sing them both, and they are "The Limbo Song" and "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)." Doesn't it seem like there would be a more extensive limbo repertoire since you have to go around and around, lower and lower, until finally someone falls? Surely an entire game of limbo can't played during one 3-minute Chubby Checker song, can it? I'll tell you what there is, though. There's an entire list of classic tv game show themes. Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right, Jeopardy!, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Family Feud...the list goes on and on. That's for JeoparFeud!, a game we made up to play tomorrow. Why? Who knows. It fills up an hour.

Other random things I have to get off my mind: I incorrectly answered the majority of the questions on the kids' version of Jeopardy! tonight. It's true...the older you get, the dumber you get. Also tonight, I burned brownies for the first time in my whole life. It's sad to look at entire Pyrex dish of brownies, covered in crusty caramel, and think to yourself that they could've made a delicious dessert for a lot of people. Oh well.

Finally, I think that I'm a little bit in love with Wayne Newton. I don't know his music, I've never seen him in Vegas and I don't really know much more about him other than he wooed Beverly D'Angelo in Vegas Vacation once, but I loooove him on Dancing with the Stars. That's right. I watch Dancing with the Stars, and I'm more than a little proud of it. Where else can you cheer on Jennie Garth, Jane Seymour, Marie Osmond and Wayne Newton all at once? No where, I tell you. I'll be sad if he gets voted off, mainly because I have a little soft spot in my heart for the middle-aged men that come on and try to dance. Remember John Ratzenberger last year? What's not to love about Cliff? Kudos to them, for being brave and loveable and good sports.

Oh, and kudos to my Tarheels. Rah-rah, Carolina-lina!

Neighborly Obligations

We got a call last night from our new-ish next door neighbor. Her husband had a terrible accident on a tractor last Thursday and is in the hospital with a crushed shoulder and a badly injured hip. They're an older couple with grandchildren, and they've been awfully nice to us since they've moved in. Lucy and Charlie, thankful that the dogs belonging to the previous tenants are now gone, have taken it upon themselves to welcome our neighbors with what can only be described as the "Feline Welcome Wagon." The first week, Lucy planted herself smack dab in the middle of their carport, refusing to move when they drove up the driveway. A few weeks later, I saw her sprawled out on their patio, napping in the sunshine under their patio table. Recently I've learned that Charlie likes to walk on their roof, mainly in the morning, and that if they listen very carefully, they'll hear the pitter-patter of little cat feet before the alarm goes off. As a cat parent, I'm a little ashamed of my parenting abilities. I can't keep them from roaming the neighborhood, but at least they're friendly enough to make themselves at home. In someone else's yard.

Now it's my turn to get to know the neighbors' house. I offered to help with what I could during their hospital stay out of town, and she took me up on my offer. I thought for sure I'd just need to pick up the newspapers and the mail, maybe water some plants. Turns out that, in fact, I do need to do those things. I also need to check that the timers work on their lights, clean out their refrigerator and check the dates on things like milk and lettuce. I also need to call their church, their housekeeper and the other neighbors to let them know what's going on.

All of this is not to say that I begrudge my neighborly duties. It is to say, though, that times have changed. In my neighbors' day, they could (and still can) rely on their friends to help them out in times of need. For my generation, we're more of a "call me if you need me" kind of bunch. Send out a mass email to tell people that your dad's been sick. Post a MySpace bulletin to ask your local friends to stop by the house for a visit. Text your co-workers about a death in your family. Are we losing sight of the personal-ness of being personal friends?

I'm glad that my neighbor thought to call me when this accident happened, and Brian and I are both flattered that she trusts us with taking care of her home and her responsibilities while she's away taking care of her husband. It's a new concept for us, though. Neighbors who really are...neighbors. Wow.

Vacation for Two

Brian's vacation starts today and he couldn't be more excited. Mine starts...after Tuesday. Tuesday is Staff Development Day, hereafter referred to as Hellish Nightmare Day. Staff Development Day at JCC occurs twice a year, during Spring and Fall Breaks and exists solely to make me a crazy person. Actually, its purpose is to provide professional development to the 120+ staff members at the College, but really, when you're in charge of the entire day, it just serves as a source of extreme tension and exhaustion.

This fall's theme is - wait for it - "Learning to Lead." How exciting! How utterly breathtaking! How...boring. Our committee has only put on one of these before, and already we're fresh out of good ideas. At this point, there's a lot left to do but most of it is of the last-minute sort. That means no sleep for me, and this eerie knot in the pit of my stomach that screams "The day will fail!" "You will forget something!" "It might be a disaster!" But I'm only listening to the knot a little bit, because the day after Hellish Nightmare Day is our mountain vacation!! Woo hoo!!

My MIL is sending us to High Hampton in Cashiers, NC for a few days to rejuve after a few months of work and school and nothing else. We've never been to High Hampton before, but apparently it's posh in that elegant-but-rustically-simple way. The wagon leaves at 5am to arrive at the Biltmore Estate at 9:30 for our tour. I've been probably 10 times by now, but BB's never gone, so we're spending almost the entire day there. Then it's off to Cashiers, where we'll stay in a little cabin-type building off from the main lodge. One of the days we're taking a day trip to Hendersonville, my home for 8 years through high school and college. It's another place BB's never seen, so we're doing it up right: riding through the old neighborhood, seeing our house, checking out the high school, our church, downtown...you name it, we're riding to see it. Should I point out my own "landmarks" while we're there? The Normans' house, Hannah Flanagan's, Jill's, the Claddagh, the lake, the hill, the CC?

Last year we spent Spring Break at my aunt's mountain house at Grandfather, so we're especially excited to return to the mountains after a year. Fall on the Blue Ridge Parkway? Perfect. Even if the leaves haven't turned, it's still oddly comforting to be returning to what I feel like is home. I love that place. I did right when we got there, and I love it still. I loved my friends there, I loved the land, I loved who I was then and I miss it. It will be hard to explain what my life was like there to someone who didn't know me then. But I'll try.

I'll post some pictures when we get back. I can't wait to be there, and though I'm sure I'll be glad to come home, I dread leaving behind, again, the girl I was in the mountains.

The Bandwagon

Welcome! You've found the spot where I/we update you/y'all on what's new in our lives. Pepsi? Check. School? Check. Fumbles and blunders? Check. Read on...

Yeah, I have MySpace and Facebook and email addresses galore. So why am I blogging? For me, it's therapy without the price tag. Consider this:

Right now, I have a regular, 40-hour a week job working with first-generation, low-income and disabled college students. I make sure they stay in school, do what they're supposed to do and help them where I can. It's stressful but rewarding and I'm glad I do it. On the 28th of October, I will celebrate my 5th anniversary with Johnston Community College (JCC) and I'm honestly looking forward to the next 5. For now.

Also, I teach a Student Success & Study Skills course to 25 students twice a week at JCC. It's a class that's required for graduation, so I get the expected lack of enthusiasm and stinky attitude that come along with required classes. My class is divided into almost two entirely different generations, but that's another story for another time...

And, if that amount of time-spent-in-a-school weren't enough, I also am in graduate school. I attend East Carolina University part-time as a master's degree student in English - Technical & Professional Communication. I alternately love and hate it. I love that I'm a DE (online) student and that I rarely, if ever, have to travel to campus, which is over an hour away from home. But I hate that I've only ever spoken to one of my professors and I've never laid eyes on any of them. I've been in school over a year now with many of the same students and we've also never gotten a chance to meet. Maybe one day...perhaps at graduation? I'm hoping to finish up next fall, but my plans always have a way of working themselves into a knot, so we'll see.

Enough for now. I've joined the bandwagon and I'm glad. If you're reading, I hope you're glad, too.