New Hobby: Knitting

My computer crashed recently, so I've decided to find new hobbies. my mother-in-law re-taught me to knit when she was in town last weekend (hopefully i'll have some pictures up soon.) anyhow, i am knitting david a scarf as my first project. that's about all i got going on right now!

True Best Friends

wednesday night mandy and joel came and stayed with us. they were on their way out of town and were just crashing for the night. they are two of my favorite people in the world (i would hope so, because they have been my best friends since i was 12 or something). i just love that they have welcomed david so fully into the circle of trust.

it can be hard coming into a friendship that crazy. not only dealing with your wife's best friend but with her husband who is also your wife's best friend. that can be intimidating. but it's not. we sit and dream of how we want to change the world together. and i know we will some day. i just love them more than words can describe and it makes 8 hours on a wednesday night the best time i've had in months because we don't get to see each other that much anymore.

anyway, love them to death. that's all.

Dad in the Newspaper

so as i've mentioned before, my dad is pretty much awesome and he just recently got appointed as fire chief of adamsville, a town a little bit north of birmingham. it's awesome. we went to visit him when we were in town last weekend (hopefully i will have some pictures soon) and i rode home with him. just talking to him about the new job, i am convinced my dad is one of the few good ones left out there (my father-in-law being another one). there's something to be said for humble leadership. i'm excited to see him wrap up his career on a high note.

and don't worry, i know your jealous of my ron jon surf shop magnet. 

Vintage Vietnam Slides

i love my dad. he is one of the smartest men i've ever met. he has worked hard his entire life and is so proud to do so. he spent the majority of his time with me and liz when we were little - mostly at the zoo or mcdonald's. reading us leather-bound whinnie the pooh books or watching gilligan's island with us.

but before he even thought about the terrifying idea of having 3 children, he was in the navy. he joined when he was 18 and wound up in vietnam as a gunner on a helicopter. he was one of the few who signed up for vietnam and was proud to serve his country. too bad his country didn't feel the same way. he was never thanked until i was 10 years old and a vietnam vet spoke at our church for a memorial day service. 

anyway, while he was there he took a whole bunch of 35 mm slides. not many people have seen them. i offered to scan and edit them. somewhere along the way i got designated as our families "historian" - maybe it has something to do with the history degree - but its a job that i greatly love. so i think i might be putting up a picture every now and then. it takes a while to scan them AND edit them so i will be picking my favorites from each group and add them. 

Same Kind of Different as Me

i'm reading same kind of different as me right now. amazing book. just a quick background: it is the narratives of ron hall and denver moore. ron is a guy who grew up in rural texas but wound up becoming a successful art dealer. denver was born in louisiana and grew up in post-reconstruction slavery (sharecropping where you were enslaved to the land you lived on). and it is the unlikely story of how they change each other's lives.

anyway, i've been told i will cry my eyes out and i have already teared up a time or two (when denver got the bike...gah!). but this excerpt was hilarious and i just felt the need to share (at least until i can come up with something of my own accord that is interesting to share). this is about the time denver, at 12 years old, got baptized in the river on the plantation where he picked cotton with his family:

i stood sideways in front of brother brown, and he put his left hand behind my back. i could hear some birds a-peepin and the water sloshin and away off down the river, i seen some white folks on a boat fishin. "li'l buddy," the preacher said, "do you believe Jesus died on the cross for your sins, was buried and rose again on the third day?"

"yessir, i do," i said and i felt somethin graze my leg. i was hopin it was a catfish. 

"i now baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!" brother brown said, and quick as lightenin like maybe i was gon' change my mind, he pinched my nose shut with his right hand, and slammed me down backward in the water.

problem was brother brown lost his grip and i sunk right down to the bottom. i didn't know i was supposed to come right back up, so i just floated on down the river a ways, blowin bubbles and lookin up through the milky water at the clouds goin by. aunt etha told me later that the congregation panicked and charged into the river. they was still splashin around and callin my name when i popped up downriver like a bobber on a fishin line, a few shades paler and fulla the Holy Ghost!

my auntie was so glad to see me, i got two servins of blackberry cobbler that day.

(also, my review of king leopold's ghost is forthcoming...amazing.)