{ just me thinking }

signage {1}

I put a one after the title because i suspect there will be subsequent “signage” posts.

While in Tulsa over the weekend for a baseball tournament I drove by this old donut shop sign. I desperately wanted to photograph it but the sun was going down, traffic was terrible and I had a car full of teenagers so I passed on but made  a mental note of where exactly it was located.

The next morning I got up and dressed quickly, told the crew I had to run an errand and wound my way back to the sign that had spoken to me the night before.

I was almost finished when an older gentleman, who had been watching me from a distance, pulled his car very close to me.

The following dialogue ensued:

Gent: So when you are done taking these pictures are you going to try and tear this old sign down too?

Me: Oh no, why would someone do that? I was just driving by last night, I’m from out of town and just had to come back to get some pictures.

Gent: Well lots of people want to tear it down you know, I thought you might have been one of them.

Me: No I actually Love old signs like this, in fact my family thinks I am a little nuts because we go to really beautiful places and I always photograph the old original stuff, not sure why but it makes me happy.

Gent: Ahh your just an old soul, enjoy your visit and I hope your pictures turn out like you hope.

The sign in the bottom left is the one referred to in this discussion.

 

302 north 9th

The first place I drove to on my hometown pit stop last week was my Nanny’s house.

Of course I knew before I got there that it had been torn down a few years ago. That knowledge didn’t prevent my heart from sinking when I got to her corner.

The corner that used to blossom with tulips, roses and babies breath.

The corner where a very pink house used to stand proudly.

The corner that nourished an old pear tree and the mailbox that stood beside it.

The corner where I learned to french braid hair, dye easter eggs and and appreciate design and love color.

The corner where I ate redeye gravy on Christmas mornings, learned to paint and always knew I was loved.

 

The house may be long gone but my memories of 302 North 9th are very much alive and a part of who I am.

hot hot hot

A few pics and random thought about this weekend

B

 

Baseball is what we do.

Baseball should be a fall sport

July is too hot for baseball

There is nothing between Tusla and OKC except for trucks, turnpikes and cows.

It is fun to capture Dad’s watching their almost grown sons

They can’t coach them anymore but the longing is still there.

Half the fun of baseball happens in the dugout….it is risky but fun to eavesdrop!

I love the site of wood bats hanging on the fence, it started with wood and the elites use wood…. real baseball.

Goodnight

dinner for 1

It’s Thursday and I am unexpectedly home alone.

Unexpectedly because sometimes work sucks and you get stuck with a frickn meeting on Friday morning when you were planning to meet your family in Tulsa on Thursday night.

In honor of having some ME time I made dinner…

Yep little mini frozen pizza’s and wine…

BUT when you put it all on a fancy tray it comes across as a very sophisticated Dinner for {one}.

While dinner was cooking I tackled this….

which I totally didn’t have to do because it is C&C’s … house rules are when you are ten your laundry is yours to do, not because I’m mean or lazy but because I refuse to raise kids who are not independent.

Did you know it takes those little mini pizza’s 20 minutes to cook?

Well it does and 20 minutes is a damn long time when you are hungry and not used to a quiet house….so I got bored and tried to take a “self portrait” Yes I know I kind of cut my own head off, but honestly this was the best one of the bunch, plus my hair looks like crap and I had already put my glasses on so it really is better this way!

Have a happy Friday, I will be in a damn meeting!

Where I’m from …

So I took a little pit stop on my way to the lake last Friday.

I’ve been wanting to take some pictures of the town where I grew up. The place that is the setting for most of my memories before the age of eighteen.

It’s not now nor has it ever been a big, fancy place but as we all do my town has changed, grown and to some degree kept up with the times… they are building a McDonalds now and rumor is a Braums sometime next year…pretty big deal for a town with one stoplight.

Though I appreciate the new and improved I found myself drawn to the old stuff.

The horse swings in the park, that plead for a coat of paint

The rocket slide that seemed so big and risky when I was little

The Rangeline Motel sign that even as a kid I knew was tacky

The old convenience store next to the tennis courts …always grabbed a Dr. Pepper and an order of potato wedges after tennis practice

The football field (replaced with a new one a few years ago) where I spent almost every Friday night my first 18 years

I’m glad I took the time to stop, reflect, remember and record before these pieces of my memory are inevitably upgraded, restored or all together demolished.

My town – a place where I grew up happy – left with a smile – and remember fondly.

the 4th {of july}

I think maybe the baseball Gods knew I needed a break this year.

I realized sometime midweek that our calendar had NO (zero, none notta) games scheduled for the weekend of the 4th. I had planned on working Friday but when the CEO came in on Thursday and said “you need a break, it’s a holiday, don’t come in Friday” I figured it was a sign from someone that I needed to get out of town.

Spent 3 days at the lake with my family.

Quiet time with my sister

Goofing off with my nephews

Just sitting with my Mom & Dad

Laughing with my kids and the crew of friends that came with us

 

I got some sun

Am totally ready for fall fashion (after reading Vogue, Lucky & InStyle)

Drank wine

Relaxed

Took pictures

A ton of pictures, not even through editing them all yet.

Here are a few, there are more in the family album in the right column, and if you really want to see them all you can go here My Pictures.

It was a good 4th!

Random Lunch Shots {Summer Set}

I’ve decided at least once a week I will leave my office, camera in hand and take some random pictures at lunch.

Today I finally got the chance, there are more but these feel like a “summer set” to me.

Lunchtime photography is fun, no planning, no destination, just drive and keep your eye open, it’s amazing what ordinary little things are out there that are worth shooting.

Wednesday Lull

Just tired of working right now. I have busted it all day and now I have hit that dreaded afternoon lull, where you just want to lay your head on the desk, close your eyes and drool all over the “important papers” you have been working on.  The time of day where you literally think “screw the important papers” I am freaking tired and pretty much DONE for today. Ahh that is where I am at this moment. Probably made worse by the fact that after I am “officially” done here I will not be getting in my car and going home but instead will be getting in the car and driving to Stillwater for a double header that starts at 6. OK so that puts me home sometime long after midnight…..shit.

I appeased myself a few minutes ago with a little JCrew  online shopping spree. Got these things (plus I few more I was too lazy to get the pics for), it was the last day for a very secret (haha) sale so who am I to waste a 20% off deal.

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My Mom seems to be getting stronger each day. They are at the lake house now, have been there since Monday. There are two things in the world that my Mom loves to do…. Go to baseball games and mow. I know those of you who knew me in highschool are laughing right now, because you totally know I am telling the truth, the woman has always loved to mow the lawn.

Anyway she has been making more games lately but she hadn’t mowed the lawn, or she hadn’t until yesterday. Dad let her mow…..bahhahaha. He has become very protective of her, but last night when I talked to him she said “well I let your Mom mow at the lake today, she promised me she would take it easy and only go on the smooth areas, I didn’t think it was a good idea but you know your Mom and the mowing thing.” 

So I think for now at least things feel a little more normal, and normal is very good.

OK I’ve killed enough of my afternoon “lull” here, back to work, then roadtrip to Stillwater.

Catching up Monday

Kind of took over my Mom’s blog for a few weeks and we all know I sort of suck at updating this one regularly so updating two was wayyy out of the realm of possibility for me.

Feel like I have been in a constant state of movement since the beginning of May.

Mom is doing much better, finished the tarceva and taking a little break before going back to MD Anderson. She has lost her hair but I think each day she is coping with that just a little better. Even made a couple of baseball games this weekend, donning one of her fabulous new hats.

My office moved, as in all of the crap that I have accumulated in ten years in my little 8-5 nook had to be moved to a new office,  to  a new building in a new zip code. Whew, I am organized, some say to a fault but let me say that little life skill helped and hurt me. Helped in that I knew what and where everything was before/during and after the move. Hurt in that my stomach was in knots the whole time in fear that one little thing had been forgotten.  Lists, it’s all about the lists  and they once again saved my ass and my day. While everyone else was digging through boxes of crap (ie important corporate stuff) I was setting up my coordinating storage containers and lining my binders in an eye appealing way, also had time to shop for a great new zebra rug for my office floor and a fabulous glass desk.  It is fun to watch someone walk into what the expect to be a stuffy corporate accountants office and instead enter my creative cleverly concealed stuffy accountants office. I will try and get some pics, and post, it’s not exactly perfect but I’m getting there.

Cale went to Florida for a couple of weeks, Road tripped with 3 of the baseball guys that graduated this year. They convinced me that he had such a sucky spring that he needed a “get away”. I agreed but he flew home on Thursday because he had to take the ACT on Saturday. Cale has flown several times alone so I wasn’t really worried. But late afternoon on Thursday we realized he was NOT going to make his connecting flight in Atlanta, ..

Following texts:

Cale: we are sitting on the runway in Atlanta but there is an emergency landing for another flight not sure when I am going to get off here, my next flight leaves in 8 minutes.

ME: shit

Cale: landing in terminal A connecting flight from terminal B

ME: RUN, and run fast maybe you’ll make it.

Cale: I can’t RUN

Me: bahaha I fogot

Since the knee surgery Cale can’t run, he missed his flight but on his own rescheduled a direct flight to OKC from Atlanta. This is why I have always made my kids be independent, not because I don’t love them, but because I love them so much that I want them to have confidence that any problem that comes up is solve-able if they just think.

Rylie went to camp in Minnesota. Pretty much all I got from this is, it was fun but Minnesota is cold, the lakes in Minnesota are cold and the water in Minnesota smells like blood…..but I think she had fun anyway.

Conner had to stay close to town for baseball but managed a quick trip to Dallas last Monday. He and some friends went down for the Third Eye Blind concert, stayed Monday night, shopped Tuesday then came home. Conner is afraid of ghosts and always thinks places are haunted. So his first report to me on Tuesday morning was that he didn’t sleep well, too much stuff bumping and banging in the hotel. He then finds out that I quote “the guy who shot the guy who shot JFK” had a tunnel there so he thinks it was that guy haunting the place.

I have spent hours cruising blogs for inspiration, and have found plenty. I plan to share some of it in the next week or so just in case it inspires you.

Getting tired tonight, but in my blog and flicker hopping I have found some images that completely grab me, every time I see one I put it in my inspiration folder. Last week I took a few of my fav photo’s together and created a new back ground for my computer. I love it, for now although I see changing it frequently just to keep it fresh.  And it beats the hell out of the ugly crap that is a standard option with windows.

that’s  all I’ve  got for tonight but my mind is full of other stuff I need to say so I’ll be back.

md{squared}

Yesterday was Mother’s Day or md{squared}… I’ll explain that in a minute.

Woke up, not to breakfast in bed, we are not an early morning family, nor are we a breakfast family.

Had a quick lunch at O’Connell’s, a local pub…and not the normal mothers day lunch kind of place. But we like to go there and I’m really not a fancy kind of mom anyway.

Had a short but well needed and nice visit with my Mom, she was having a pretty good day.

The weather was cold and rainy (not really rain, more like drizzle) but it was bedlam baseball. I think I have celebrated Mothers day at or near a baseball field for the last 10 years or so….it is what we do and where we feel at home.

We loaded up two cars, our family is never just “our” family, there are always at least a couple of extra kids along, and headed to bricktown in OKC to take in the game at the ballpark. 

I didn’t take my good camera because of the rain so I had to borrow Rylie’s to get some snapshots……. the boys didn’t want to cooperate with the whole picture thing

I snapped a little……not a mean snap by my standards though…..and said “this is my damn day so just humor me with the picture thing.”  MM(friend who is always around) then dubbed mothers day as md{squared} My Damn Day! 

We watched the game, ate cracker jacks, got a cheap (not fun) prize  in the cracker jack sack, got pretty wet then went to dinner.

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The kids got me some fabulous new Ralph Lauren sunglasses, I love that my guys know me well enough to by me rockin’ gifts….never once have I gotten something matronly for md{squared} ususally shoe’s or RL glasses!

It was a good day, I don’t know that I am the best Mom but I do love my kiddo’s and I think that matters more than homemade dinners, and freshly baked cookies everyday.

One last pic then I’m signing out, need to sleep…..it was a long day at the office and I didn’t sleep well last night but I thought you might want a better look and me and the crew.

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We’re crooked, Steve took it and thought it would add an artistic touch……hahahaha, at least he trys.

Goodnight