One Month From Today

TODAY'S BIG STORY:  One month from today, my two youngest children will graduate from Mississippi State University on the same day in May!  Spring Break has come and gone, and the last month of college is finally here. Senior year sounds almost old story and rubber stamp at this point; however, graduation day at Mississippi State hasn't always been a familiar tune.

Katie graduated from high school in 2005 and enrolled at the junior college in our area.   So many high school graduates from our county go to this particular college that it is nicknamed 'the thirteenth year of high school.' That same year, Hurricane Katrina hit south Mississippi, and the college closed for almost two months. Those two months were two months too many for Katie, who had not embraced her thirteenth year of high school.  In October of that year, she withdrew from junior college, moved to Memphis to live with her sister, and worked at J Crew during the holidays.  In the spring of 2006, she was hired as a flight attendant at age 19. 

In May 2006, her brother Matt graduated from high school and headed to the same junior college.  Unfortunately, he didn't last until October.  During his first week of school, my husband and I sold the Big House and temporarily moved into a friend's mobile home. Matt withdrew from school within a month…probably the roughest patch for us all.  Meanwhile, our oldest daughter left Memphis and moved to Sacramento, California, so Katie moved to another Memphis apartment by herself at age 20.  Matt graduated from insurance school and tried to sell life insurance...which lasted one day.

After insurance school and real estate school, Matt tried his luck as a traveling salesman or "slinger" from town to town...which lasted a week.  Finally convinced of the importance of a college education, he and I drove to Starkville, MS., enrolled in the School of Architecture (the only accredited architecture school in the state) and put a down payment on an apartment at Stonehenge #79.  He spent the summer of 2007 taking Trigonometry, College Algebra, and Statistics, which were all prerequisites for the fall semester. Meanwhile, David and I were moving into our newly-purchased honeymoon cabin that we had built when we first married! CRAZY TIMES!

On Matt’s first day at State, he locked himself out of his apartment and walked five miles during Mississippi's unprecedented 100 degree-plus heat wave to get a key from the landlord.  After that fiasco, he drove to campus to finish his registration process and backed into a car! What craziness! That day seems like ancient history now, as does the relationship that ended for him that first semester.  Around the same time, Katie started having second thoughts about her career choice. So in January of 2008, she enrolled at Mississippi State and moved in with Matt. 

Somehow, over the next four years, we all defied the odds – financially, emotionally and academically.  At one point, we moved both kids out of Apartment #79 in the pouring rain in the middle of July, only to move them back into Apartment #78 on Christmas weekend – six months later! Unbelievable! Now, they will be moving out of Apartment #78 for the last time.

Katie found the love of her life at Mississippi State University, and Matt learned the importance of best friends. Matt realized how smart he has always been with a 4.0 GPA in his major, and Katie proved to herself that she could kick butt in College Algebra! After four years as roommates, Matt will always hate The Housewives of Beverly Hills, and Katie will never watch an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Matt will miss Katie’s home-cooked mac and cheese, but Katie will never miss Matt’s canned ravioli from Fred’s.

Despite disappointing losses, dashed hopes and heartbreaking upsets, they both bleed maroon and white.  In just a few weeks, they will be a part of an insular group of people – Mississippi State University alumni. Friends and football, fun and finances, feast and famine – four years of struggle and success, hot sauce and heartburn, nightlife and noodles, tailgating and tests, changed majors and challenged minds – one chapter ends and another begins.  

But today, I say…let the cowbells ring!

MAROON – WHITE – FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

MISSISSIPPI STATE – WOOOOO…

D--- RIGHT!

(Sorry, kids, I’m still your Mom…)

Dianne ; )

NOTE: Over the past four years, the kids have sent me phone photos documenting their life at MSU...here are just a few of those pics.

Best Friend...

New Friend...

Boyfriend!

Our Campus...

Our Coach...

Our Bully...

 

Our Tent...

Our House!

Katie's Poison Ivy...

 Matt's Broken Ankle!

Dress Rehearsal for Game Day...

Dress Rehearsal for Life!

Isabella Button Ruined My Life!

TODAY'S BIG STORY: Isabella Button! A few weeks ago, Riley and I had a visitor, and her name is Isabella Button or Bella, for short.  Bella is a six-month-old cockapoo puppy that I attempted to foster with the possibility of adopting.  However...big, big sigh...after three weeks, I knew that I could not keep her on a permanent basis.  My adopted dog Riley was not impressed with Isabella Button, at all.  He snapped at her, growled at her, and tried to ignore her.  What I know for sure is that no animal (two-legged or four-legged) is capable of ignoring Isabella Button! After a wild three weeks of total canine mayhem, I decided that I was not the foster parent she needed. The most unusual twist to this story is that Riley seemed to miss her after she left. For three days, he acted totally depressed.  He didn't eat, and he didn't play. Isabella Button had left her paw print on us all.

RILEY RULES is the sign on my front door;

all my toys are scattered across the floor. 

In my house, I am king,

and I always get the best of everything.

I am five years old, and I nap all day,

but my life was not always this way.

I am adopted – a sad-eyed rescue –

but now I am Boss - a spoiled-rotten shih tzu…

until Isabella Button ruined my life.

Isabella Button is a rescue dog, too;

she is a six-month-old wild-eyed cockapoo.

My owner was kind enough to take her in,

but life has been chaos for me since then.

What a mess! So much strife!

Isabella Button ruined my life!

All day long, she wants to play,

and I don’t live my life that way.

I eat my meals – three times a day;

I potty outside, and I understand “Stay!”

I have my own bed in my own space,

but Isabella Button thinks she runs the place!

I have sweet treats that are all my own;

I expect royal treatment upon my throne.

Now, I share my treats with Isabella Button,

who never stops eating – a cockapoodle glutton.

I cannot sleep, I cannot rest.

Isabella Button is a cockapoodle pest!

With Isabella Button, trouble is always near –

“Stop it, Bella!” “Put it down!”  “Bella, give it here!”

Isabella Button scrambles under the couch or finds a place to hide,

when my owner screams, “BELLA! PEE OUTSIDE!”

Then one morning, my owner said, “I just can’t help her.

We have no choice but to take her to the shelter.

She is out of control.  She won’t obey.

I know it isn’t fair, but she cannot stay.”

The very next day, she was gone – just that fast.

Life was back to normal – peace at last.

No more excitement, no long hours of play.

Just me and my owner, and I like it that way.

I should be happy – at least, I guess –

but I have one question, “Do dogs get depressed?”

Today I really miss her. I feel sad.

Maybe Isabella Button wasn’t so bad.

I hope she finds a family she can call her own –

someone to teach her manners and give her a home.

RILEY RULES is the sign that hangs on my front door,

and all my toys are scattered across the floor.

I am adopted – a sad-eyed rescue –

but now I am Boss – a spoiled-rotten shih tzu –

until Isabella Button ruined my life.

Dianne ; )

POSTSCRIPT: The day after I wrote this blog, I decided to call the Mississippi Animal Rescue League to see if there was any possible way that we could re-adopt Bella.  The so-nice lady on the phone said that Bella was adopted just a couple of days after she was placed in the viewing area.  She said that we would be very pleased with Bella's fine new family.  Even with a happy ending for Bella, today's big story is still a little sad for Riley and me.



Sheer Perfection!

TODAY'S BIG STORY:  Sheer Perfection!  For the past several weeks, the weather in the South has been sheer perfection.  We have had a few stormy exceptions, but most days are sheer perfection ~ blue skies, mild temperatures and cool breezes.  The weather has made me an active gardener, a spring cleaner and a lazy blogger!  I could hardly believe that my last blog was February 16th! I am almost sure that it has been  just as many days since I have held my laptop.  I have held a rake and a paint brush and a camera...but I have been off the online grid for weeks!

One afternoon, I was sitting in my reading chair in front of two open windows.  I kept trying to focus on the book I was reading; however, I was so distracted by the sheer curtains blowing in the breeze.  I finally closed the book and decided to take pictures of the billowy curtains ~ the movement, the light, the shadows. Two hours and four hundred pictures later, I forced myself to stop!  I know that you are probably thinking, "This woman needs to get a life!"  I can't explain it, but the combination of the light and the wind and the swirling curtains was therapeutic! As I clicked away, I felt almost trance-like, as though I were in a meditative state of mind...thus the title, Sheer Perfection.

I noticed some glass hurricane globes that had been in the windows since Christmas, and I began to appreciate how the light and shadows were manipulating the glass images onto the curtains.  Then I started taking pictures of the actual clear glass, as I noticed repetetive patterns and textured mosaics.

When I was growing up, my grandmother had a sleeping porch.  Two full size beds were located in the large room, along with a couch, a chifferobe (as Grandma called it), a television, and I think a washer/dryer...maybe just a washing machine.  (She had a long clothesline the length of the house times two.)  The sleeping porch was actually a walled-in part of the house.  To come into the room, you either walked down a dog trot hallway from the front door or you climbed about twenty steps up to the back door of the sleeping porch, which was elevated high off the ground. We slept in those beds year round, but during the spring and fall, we would "let up" the windows.  Grandma couldn't afford expensive curtains, and the ones she had were pretty thread bare; however, when that cool breeze blew across our beds at night, there was nothing even remotely comparable to that feeling of privilege.  Sheer Perfection!

Of course, Riley thought all this talk of curtains blowing in the breeze was much ado about nothing. Still, the cool breeze had the same effect on him that it had on me as young girl.  After about thirty minutes, he was sound asleep.

So when people ask me why I haven't been blogging for the last month, I can truthfully say that I have been "shooting the breeze." Sheer Perfection!

Dianne ; )