"WHERE I'M FROM"

Vee had this neat meme on her blog that she got from Shanda - Front Porch-Sweet Tea & Old Aprons and said we could all participate if we wanted. I thought I'd give it a try (since I've not got any decent photos for you today), but I'm not good at homiletics and have been my usual too-wordy self again.

Where I'm From...


I'm from a little house in Texas
with a breezeway,
From back in time
From a different place
From a simpler life.
From dad & mom, Jerry & BJ.,
a sister & a brother.
From my palomino
spring horse & all things
equine.
From cartoons &
peanut butter, puppies & kittens.
From vacation Bible school,
scratchy petticoats, gloves
& hats and patent leather shoes.
I'm from my Nanny's slick
wood floors and the
"sliding pillows",
the cold back porch,
gettin' my own switch
from the hedge,
from PawPaw's lap
reading Sunday funnypapers.
From fishing,
from hunting, &
from fixin' stuff
with my dad.
From the great outdoors.
From lizards, toads,
squirrels & birds.
I'm from falling in love at 17
& marrying my highschool sweetheart at 21.
From diapers & laundry
to letting them go.
From soccer games & ballet classes
and loud music at all hours.
From oil paints & turpentine and
splatters of color on everything I own.
From hands with paint stains
& charcoal under my nails.
From laundry in baskets and
housecleaning set aside, cobwebs in the
corners, dust on the furniture,
dishes in the sink so I can paint.
From shorthand class to bookkeeper.
Spontaneous, quirky & moody
enough to keep my husband
perplexed most of the time.
I'm wife, mom, sister, daughter, friend,
Christian, counselor, chauffer, cleaning
lady & cook.
I'm artist & homeroom
mom, set designer & biggest fan of
my kids.
I'm in love with my husband
& think there is no better man in
all the earth.
From a sinful past to a future in heaven.
I'm forgiven & loved by the One whose
relationship I cannot live without.

There you have it. I could add tons more but just tried to hit the highlights. Vee's sounds so much more poetic.... sigh....

Childhood memories

Looking at my new banner (which IS a photo from our farm....), let's go back in time to our childhood. What I wouldn't give to have another day like this................(trying my hand at writing, bear with me - I ain't got the writing talent like some of you have, but I love summer....)

Close your eyes and imagine.....

The air is warm, sticky & heavy with the sweet cloying smell of honeysuckle. It's hot out, there is an occasional little waft of air stirrin' a piece of hair that keeps ticklin' my cheek and stickin' in the perspiration on the side of my face. I fish it out of the side of my mouth with a finger and taste the salt and then hook the wayward tendril back behind my ear. My grandmother's metal lawn chair is bobbin' back and forth as I rock myself into a trance. It's summertime, and I'm out of school. My bare feet push at the sand again and again and the dirt becomes cooler as my toes scoot deeper into the ground while I rock.

All is quiet 'cept for the rythmic squeak of the chair and the locusts that drone on and on all around me, lappin' over and over each other's beginning and ending so that the sound is one continuous, mesmerizin' hum. Dappled sunlight comin' through the sycamore and catalpa trees makes me squint one eye open to see where to wiggle my chair next to find the best shade. The sour gnats tickle my nose and eyelashes and the crooks of my arms and knees and I wave them away for the thousandth time. Nanny's chickens scratch around lazily in the heat kickin' up a little cloud and her old dog lays flat out asleep in a patch of dirt at my side twitchin' his feet as he dreams of younger days and chasin' squirrels. Dirt daubers whirl around the shed beyond the garden patch lookin' for a safe place to start another little clay cache for their eggs - since I poked their other ones to bits with the end of a mimosa branch that I'd used for a bow and arrow. Even the vegetables in the garden seem to be droopin' in the heat.

The screen door slams, and I look up to find my little sister amblin' towards me with a popsicle in her mouth, a red moustache and another one drippin' down her arm and headin' in my direction. A sweet red popsicle - and nanny didn't even cut them in half this time to save money! I take my popsicle and savor the gooey red sweetness and it runs down my chin, mixes with the granny beads on my neck and drips down the front of my shirt. The sour gnats go crazy. Of course, messy popsicles & granny beads call for a dip in the sprinkler! It'll also get nanny to let us back in the house!

We play all afternoon usin' our big imaginations, never for once thinkin' that our children and grandchildren will be imaginationally challenged because of TV, computers and video games. I wonder, how in the world can they not know how to find somethin' fun to do durin' the summertime? Who wouldn't want to be outside on a day like this? When the sun starts dippin' lower in the sky, Nanny calls us in for supper which might consist of homegrown veggies with bacon grease drippings, cornbread, and maybe fried ham with red-eye gravy or fried chicken and a mason jar of iced tea. She makes me and my little sister do the dishes and stands over us to make sure it's done right. Any trash except cans we take out to the burnin' pile beyond the shed to be burned another day, maybe after a rain.

Nanny peels our dirty clothes off our sun-browned, wet-dog smellin' bodies and plunks us in the bathtub together. There's always a terrible ring in the tub. Donned in fresh undies and a homemade little gown, we crawl into her big 4-poster bed. There is no air conditioner, but the attic fan pulls the balmy night air in through the window over the bed. We can lay there with no covers and be completely comfortable. The curtains are sucked out away from the window and we can look out into the night and see stars and the moon, hear the crickets singin' and shiver at the deliciousness of trying to keep our eyes open to enjoy this feelin'. It doesn't last long as the sandman tugs our eyelids closed and we drift off to sleep..... Does it get any better than this??? I think not!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, summertime!!!!

Memorial Day Party

Hi folks - didja think I'd left? Nope, just working my tail off. Also, I'm so mad - my camera decided to do a "format error" on the memory stick (I'm sure I didn't do anything to it!) and I lost all my pictures from our Memorial Day cookout! I'm so mad! We had such a good time despite the occasional fire ant. We sat in the back yard under the big oak tree with picnic tables (actually borrowed tables & chairs from our church) and ate and visited well into the evening in our vintage metal lawn chairs. There was a nice breeze so it didn't get too hot. My dear Husband cooked all afternoon - smoked chicken, sausage and burgers. We had potato salad, baked beans, and all the trimmin's and my friend Sandy baked her prize winning carrot cake (& a chocolate cake, too) - I swear, it's like an italian cream cake almost, it's so moist. It was a special request from me! Thanks Sandy!

Anyway, a good time was had by all. Everyone loved our house. I filled up all the rooms with roses and had them outside and on the tables. I also pulled out all my old vintage table cloths and old dishes. Soft drinks were iced down in a big ole galvanized water trough. We did a grand tour, several in fact, for the stragglers. We have several that would like to come "borrow" our little farmhouse for a weekend away from home. I guess we could go into the bed & breakfast business if we wanted, huh! That's a thought. But no, maybe for special people - otherwise, me and my family wouldn't get to stay there much...

I'll leave you with this photo - the place I wish I was 99% of the time. Mexico.

Don't guess I'll be going anywhere this summer, as we gotta get Princess ready to go off to college, and all that entails....

Just checkin' in...

I'll be back - we had a great Memorial Day picnic at the farm. I have some photos, but work is calling my name loudly. I'll get back to you all .....

My son Adam

Ok, I'm putting it out there. Here's my oldest son, Adam Fears, Nashville singer/songwriter/future star hopeful. This is HIS story. I don't like to brag cuz all moms of talented kids brag about their kids. But he's good, he's really good. Check his My Space out and you can listen to some of his music. www.myspace.com/adamwfears I tried to put a link over on the right side of my blog, but haven't figured out how to link it up yet... Adam came into this world singing, talking, memorizing music, ditties, cartoons, commercials, you name it, demanding to be the center of attention. We got him his first guitar when he was 12 - an electric guitar.

Some of the kids at school probably thought he was goofy - I know his teachers got tired of making him sit in the hall cuz he wouldn't shut up in their classes (but that's a whole 'nuther story). He decided to become a musician - it's all he's ever wanted to do. In middle school, he decided to play his guitar and sing in the end of school talent show. The kids said, "yeah, right!" Well, in our middle school gym, with parents and kids all packed in and the amps turned way up, he blew them away with his rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama". Everybody was on their feet, kids and parents alike, clapping and singing along with him. He played extra choruses at the end cuz everybody was having so much fun. Were his dad and I proud? Did we wanna tell all those kids that thought he was goofy "see there? How's that!"

After the program ended, Adam later told me, "Mom, that was the best feeling in the world! I was a little nervous at first, but hearing all the people yell and scream and sing with me and knowing that they were happy and clapping for me - well it was GREAT!" From then on, he has had this dream in mind. If he was good enough, he was going to give music a try. He was always in band, a band nerd, and played the bass horn in the Fightin'Texas Aggie Band at TEXAS A&M (whoop). He had his own band, the Brazos Valley Band, at College Station and they were regulars at Hurricane Harry's and Texas Hall of Fame and other places down there. They played at weddings, private parties, concerts and even did a little touring. In his Jr year of college, Adam cut his first CD (at his own expense I might add) in Garland, TX. Sold a bunch of them at all his concerts. He's played with several leading Texas stars. His grandad, through a friend of a friend, got one of Adam's CDs to Faverett Music Group in Nashville. They liked him and called him up to see them. They wanted to hire him on the spot as a singer/songwriter. Adam gave it some long deep thought and prayer and decided that he needed to finish college first (whew) and they told him that when he graduated, to come and see them. He's been there for 2 years now.

He absolutely loves music, breathes, eats & drinks it in. He's a natural on stage, a born entertainer with charisma. He's really into Country/Southern Rock music. He can tear the guitar, any guitar, up. He plays Stevie Ray Vaughn, 70's rock, and country like you wouldn't believe. He's since completed another CD and released his first single "You Get Me" last year on Texas Country Music with more to come. He consistently writes with other professional writers and performs all over Nashville and travels surrounding states with his band and also fills in on lead and rhythm guitar with other bands. He's currently finding a niche for himself playing Texas Country on Broadway in Nashville at Full Moon Saloon.

We're hopeful for him to realize his dream. This is the time to do it while he's young and unencumbered. This business is scarey. But Adam has a good head on his shoulders and he's a devoted Christian young man and determined not to let the music scene suck him into the lifestyle. He says that when it's no longer fun and when he feels that activities or people may compromise his Christian morals, then he'll be coming home to Texas. That is my most fervent prayer. I miss him so. He and I were thick as thieves - we had 4 years together before his brother was born. Still are extremely close. It's been the hardest thing for me to do is to let go. Thank goodness for cell phones.

Well, there you have it. We'll see what happens - I just pray for God's will for his life, as well as the lives of my other two kids. I'm proud of all 3 of my kids, altho Adam's situation is unique and his sibs are extremely proud of him, too. I only want their happiness, but most of all that they live a life pleasing to the Lord. It's so easy to get sidetracked when you're young - happens all the time. New talented young folks in Nashville are a dime a dozen, but he's got a good start so we'll see where it takes him. He say's he'll give it a few years, but if nothing happens, he's not going to waste his time. He's ready to get on with real life, with a home and family. Can't do it right now.

Ok, I'm done - done braggin'. Here's a college photo of him. Changed alittle bit, hadn' he? I sorta like this look better. He's taken to wearing his cowboy hat again - which I like. He's trying to be himself and not conform too much to the Nashville look. He did for awhile, now he's coming back into his own and being comfortable in his own skin, boots, & cowboy clothes.

I'll shut up now. I'll have to profile my other 2 one of these days. They might get jealous... Vickie