home, sweet, home.

I got home yesterday. After waking up at 4 am... awesome. Cody is a crazy individual for doing it every day.

I have a kidney infection. It's bad. It hurts. It's been bad for probably a little over a month now. I should probably be dead. The doctor yelled at me. I'm glad I didn't go to the hospital or get IVs. Oh dear. . .

be careful what you wish for...

I knooooooow I wanted to come to Georgia.

I was flying standby, which is a loooooot cheaper - you just have less certainty of when you'll be getting to your destination, and right now my destination is supposed to be somewhere between 32000 to 40000 feet. About halfway home. And I'm still in Jasper. I love it here. But I'm nervous I won't make it home in time.

In time for this:

That, my dear friends, is the view from the top of the boat house at our family's home at Lake Gaston. THAT is were I'm planning on spending Memorial Day with people I love.

And after this long weekend, I plan to go home with my family where I can cook new recipes like:

Farfalle with Zucchini

Fettuccini Alfredo

Monkey Bread

Mozzarella Sticks

Restaurant Style Salsa

Shrimp Pasta with Creamy Tomato Sauce

Sparkling Pineapple Ginger Ale

Tiramisu

Zucchini Cakes

...mmmm... Can't wait! I love feeding people I love.

sweet, sweet Georgia.

Hello.

I'm alive.

I'm in Georgia.

I love it.

The end.

i love you more than all the o's

...in a box of cheerios.

I wish I could type the whole poem... and come Memorial Day Weekend I will, if I remember... but I couldn't find any of the poetry books written by Norma Furgerson.

I am, in fact, eating Cheerios for breakfast this morning. Actually, I just finished the last bite. My grandma ate Cheerios for breakfast every morning. The poem mentioned is one of a few that my great-grandma wrote and dedicated to her.

On Monday, May 3rd, John Clark passed away. He had been diagnosed with some form of cancer a month ago and then had a heart attack and died. It was very sudden for all of his loved ones, they were surprised and not ready to say goodbye quite yet. I don't think I knew Mr. Clark, I'm sure I met him a bunch as a child when my grandparents still lived in Springfield, but I have only one distinct memory in that house, and it was eating Cheerios for breakfast. My grandma was good friends with Linda, John's wife. They had a group of ladies who were all best friends and did a bunch of things together. I only remember two of them from those days. Linda was not one. But, our families have been friends for decades, since the 70s! So we all went to show our love and support.

While we were at the funeral I got the chance to see one of the two women I actually remembered, Bobbie. I remember twice going to the Ritz Carlton for tea. I don't know how many times some of those women reminded me that the one year I got to dress myself I wore a red velvet dress. We went to the tea for my birthday. My birthday is in August. However, I remember those times with my grandma and Bobbie at the Ritz fondly.

You can all blame her for my always demanding the best. Apparently I came home after the first year and told my dad I was having my wedding reception there. I'm still getting told to dream on. I was also told that at one of my dad's company Christmas parties I went to someone asked me if the place was nice [it was] and I said, "I guess, but it's not as nice as the Ritz." I was such a wonderful child.

My grandma passed away the day after her favorite holiday, Easter, when I was in first grade. She had lived with I think 17 years of MS and then during the last few she had brain cancer. It was rough on the family, I was young... I didn't really know. But I'm so thankful to have the memories I do, because it's more than my brother. I got to go fishing with her, paint my fingernails shades of pink and pearly colors, eat Cheerios, go to the Ritz, and more than he ever got to do.

Even things I don't necessarily remember and I just hear from other people make me love her more and wish I could've grown up knowing her through adulthood. The way she continued living her life for the Lord, joyous and thankful to be alive and have her family around her. To live a life of such faith that she prayed the prayer with my grandpa, "God, if it's your will, take our son, we trust you even though it's hard." That was when my dad had been in a coma for 2 weeks and the doctor said there was nothing else they could do, shortly after they prayed my dad started coming to. Crazy. But, that's another story.

She was such a wonderful, inspirational, and influential women. And she was sick. She was dying. What in the world? That makes me mad that I'm perfectly healthy, I don't have anything major going against me, but I'm not always joyful, I'm not always first to pray and trust God 100% right off, I'm not the glue that holds family and friends together like she was. Remember the Clarks? The funeral wasn't a reunion just for us, most of the women in that group had drifted when my grandma died. I'm young and healthy, I have every reason to be generous with my life and love, thankful, joyous and yet I worry about things that are nothing. Funerals help put in perspective your mortality and how you're living, what you're living for. I want to start living like I am Marj Furgerson's granddaughter.

Next week I'm going to Georgia ( :] !!!!), where I get to be with two women who are equally as great as my grandma, two women that I also have the privileged of calling family, two women that I have mentioned before. Norma and Darla Furgerson, my greats. Norma is my Great Grandmother, she is equally as great as she is grand. Darla is my GREAT aunt. I love them. They inspire my soul and I love spending time with them and in the beautiful area of Jasper. I can't wait.

I don't have any pictures of my grandma and me on my computer, but I do have this one of GG, Darla, and Me from 2007. PS: It was my GG's 92nd birthday. She'll be 95 this July.

changes.

I haven't written in quite some time... probably because of the stresses of starting this new chapter in my life... of which I'm not quite sure yet.

I've moved home, and I won't be continuing my schooling at MACU this fall. Which is just sad. I will miss some people more than others, but I will especially miss Mrs. Avery. I've learned more than music form her this past academic year, she is a genuine, wonderful person and I already miss seeing her on Monday/Wednesday/Friday. I know she doesn't believe me when I say that I'l visit, but... I'm coming to see Chorale perform! I wouldn't miss it.

I'm not going back to MACU for a couple reasons, but none of which are that it is a bad school, it is a great school academically and socially. For me though, it felt like like I was the square peg trying to fit into the too small round hole. I just didn't fit. It's not a bad thing, it's just I tried too hard to make myself fit that I stopped being me for too long, it wasn't a good situation.

So I'm home, for the summer, for awhile. My PLAN is [and we all know how God likes to change my plans...] to go to Georgia next week with my family and think more about life and everything, and talk it over with some wise people who are pretty removed from the situation... but hopefully I'm going to be getting a nanny job or a daycare job by next fall and start working that. Also, I'm going to be taking over the jobs of our cleaning ladies for some extra cash as well. I think a nanny/daycare job would be great for me because of the nature of the work, I've missed being with kids this past year! Also, the hours are perfect for what I want for my life right now. They'd hopefully leave me with time to volunteer at church, with worship and with the youth group, and my weekends would generally be free so I'd be able to pick up some extra babysitting OR go visit Cody. Both are always nice :]

Speaking of Cody... we had a photo shoot with my mom last Saturday at Manassas Battlefield. Since we are going to be away form each other a lot coming up, all of the pictures we have now are kind of crappy, and my mom loves photography and is good at it, we... I... decided that we should take some together. They turned out great. My mom put some on her facebook, and I put some on mine. Some of them are probably repeats, but there are different ones on both pages I think. We like each other. And for the record, they are NOT engagement pictures. Note the disclaimer on my album. Refer back to my rant for my opinion on such matters.

Well, my laundry is screaming at me, so I guess I'll go flip it into the dryer and put another load in... who knew I had so many clothes?! That is a rhetorical question, just by the way...