Low

Around the time I wrote my last post, my mother-in-law became sick. She died before the new year.

I've wanted to talk about this, but every time I try, I get stuck, not to mention extremely sad. So I'm just going to have to leave it at these few lines, if I'm ever going to move on and write anything else.

A lot of people make jokes about their in-laws, but mine was the best. I really miss her.

Major award

The leg lamp from the movie A Christmas Story is so well known, that when someone speaks of a major award, you think they're kidding.



My nephew really won a major award, though.



A "What do you mean, I have to pay taxes on it?!" MAJOR Major Award.



My sister-in-law told me that he's actually the third person in the family to have won something this substantial... an aunt and an uncle, on separate sides of the family, have both won cars.



Our nephew is back stateside now, having finally finished his tour in Iraq. And you may remember that he previously served in Afghanistan.

Hubby says this bike may be more dangerous than either of those.



He had to try it out too, though.



I can't help myself, I just love a man on a motorcycle!

What madness

My Mom's old neighbor had a beautiful wall-trained Pyracantha espalier.



Some strain of madness* evidently struck the new occupant. He cut it all down, while it was full of berries.

Mom rescued a few branches for display.

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*Rhodophobia, the fear of the color red?

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This is not the first time I've wished for a Big Book of Phobias. The internet can't find me a word that means fear of berries. Or fear of thorns, though I'm almost certain those words must exist.

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P.S. Go visit the Festival of the Trees, if you haven't already.

Husband humor

Hubby: I think I'll go up and get my hair cut.

Me: It doesn't look that long.

Hubby: Mmph. [Still moving towards the door.]

Me: But what if I want to run my fingers through it?

Hubby: I'll have them put it in a bag for you.

Stupefied by the labor of digestion

Bluh. I had to relax and do genealogy all day today, to recover from yesterday's intense gluttony. Bluh. Diet starts again next week, I guess.

I am much too lazy to send handmade cards for Christmas, so it's a wonder that I receive any.



My Mom's cross-stitch. I forgot to ask if she started these last Dec 26.



Cutie-pie niece designed this card from my sister's family. (My brother-in-law says he's the handsome one in this drawing.)



Mt artist friend included one of her dogs on their card.



OK, this one wasn't homemade, but my brother knows how much I love Edward Gorey!

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Stupefied by the labor of digestion: Stolen from Anaïs Nin's diary, which was featured on the Writer's Almanac today.

Funny Bunny Sunday

I dreamed that I took my favorite photo ever, and decided that the definitive title for it would be Funny Bunny Sunday. My husband pointed out (in the dream) that the picture was of our cat Ginger, and not a rabbit. "It'll still work," I said.

I sat with camera in hand for at least an hour, obsessed with recreating my dream. I waited for Ginger to do anything remotely funny-bunnyish. But mostly he was just interested in sleeping.


"You are not putting that on the internet."*


Kind of bunny.


Kind of funny.

Ginger loves to crawl up my husband's chest, arch his back high in the air, then settle very, very close to the face. I tease him. "That cat looooves you."

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*I was able to change his mind.

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P.S. I forgot to add a link to the Circus of the Spineless earlier. Sorry, Doug!

Pre-teen spirit

My cutie-pie niece, in the shirt she's not allowed to wear to school any more.



I can't remember if she was actually sent home, or just asked not to wear it again.

Happy New Year

This was the image on my sister's Christmas card this year, but I think he makes a good New Year's Koi too, don't you? (It seems like he's swimming in confetti.)

I was impressed that my 4th grade niece had colored such a pretty carp. Then I found out that she'd actually drawn it! She said they'd had something to copy from, but it isn't traced.

I think we've got a budding artist in the family.

Critter cam?

Chipmonk creeping through the holly.



Fox lurking in the houseplant... preparing to pounce.



Chipmonk hiding in Mom's Christmas tree.



Fox and chipmonk divide the crumbs from Mom's table.

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My sister's dog's toys, up to no good and pretending to be caught on the critter cam (my sister's idea). I had to be coaxed into the idea, but my brother got me going by taking the first pic above.

Isn't that a nice holly plant he gave us for Christmas, by the way?

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I just noticed that the chipmonk is hiding between examples of Mom's smocking, Mom's tatting, and Mom's crocheting. There is even a ceramic Santa she painted, in the background. She also made the ceramic napkin ring holder and the angel in the last pic, as well as the boxwood Christmas tree on the table. She's pretty crafty!

Julia Ann of the broken heart

Julia Ann, about 1880 I think

She was born in Jasper county, Georgia (red dot below), just before the government did a snatch and grab on the Cherokee land (in gray) that lead to the Trail of Tears.



Jasper county had been Creek Indian territory up until about 30 years earlier, but by the time she was born, even the Creeks in west Georgia had been gone for five years.¹

She was the 6th child, born to parents who had emigrated from North Carolina. Her family had been in America since her 13-year-old immigrant ancestor came from England to Virginia in 1660.



She married William at age 20 (he was 27), and nine years later (in 1860), she was living in Atlanta's Fifth ward (purple area below) with her husband and two children. I believe she had already lost two other children, either in childbirth or from illness at a young age.



Atlanta was booming, with a population of 10,000. There were "3,800 homes, iron foundries, mills, warehouses, carriage and wheelwright shops, tanneries, banks and various small manufacturing and retail shops."²


Whitehall Street, Pre-war Atlanta (near Julia's home)³

Her husband was a carpenter, and their neighbors included a clerk, a printer, other carpenters, a shoemaker, several blacksmiths, a wheelwright, and an attorney. (Lawyers must not have been paid quite so well back then.)

Then came the war. Four years later, "...only 400 structures were left standing. Atlanta was a ghost town of rubble and ashes."²

I don't know how or when the family left Atlanta. I can't find any record of her husband during the war, though he would have been of fighting age (35).



On the next census, in 1870, the family was in DeKalb county, just to the east. Her husband is now a miller, and they have four children. Among them is my great-great-grandmother Martha, age 15. They live just down the street from her future husband, Turner, who's 17.

By 1880 William had become a farmer, and he and Julia live next door to Martha and Turner, who have two children of their own already.

Sadly, the 1890 Federal census was destroyed by fire.



By 1900 everyone had moved to Chattooga county, living in the charmingly named Dirt Town⁴. Julia and William were living with their son and his family. They've celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Julia reports to the census-taker that she has given birth to six children, four of whom lived to adulthood. This is the last paper record I have of her, seven years before she died at age 75.

The Tragedy, February 1907
Written by Kate, who was born in 1901.
"When I was 6, we were eating supper one night and my Grandmother Julia had just set the coffee pot down by her chair when my younger sister, Bertha [age 2], tripped over it, scalding herself very badly. The next day she died. Grandmother Julia died that night also."

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¹It was Georgia's governor who forced them out, not the federal government (this time).

² History of Atlanta

³Now Peachtree Street

⁴A.k.a. Dirttown, not in existance today. Right near Dirt Seller Mountain... It's no wonder they also had a Broomtown nearby.

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P.S. You might have noticed, I've gotten interested in genealogy again.

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Georgia county formation maps - extremely cool.

80

Nothing much has been happening. Work, work, work. Hot, hot, hot. Dry, dry, dry. That's about it.



We went to Mom's over the weekend. While everyone else worked on birthday-present-oddjobs, I played with my nieces.



It was of course very borrrrring for children to be stuck in a house full of old people and no computers.



My old Johnny West horses.



Ye olde styrofoam watering hole.



Elvis thought it was all very childish.

Let me know if I get in your way

I don't think cats understand reading.

Priceless poetry

One, two, three, four,
Kick bad drugs out the door!
Five, six, seven, eight,
Just do that and you'll feel great!

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My cutie-pie niece's award-winning anti-drug slogan.

Auntie is very proud, since the 8-year-old brilliant cutie pie niece's slogan was voted the best in her whole school.

Belated Halloween post

Grr!

A scary werewolf on Halloween, a.k.a. my cutie-pie niece.

A Sweetie

Over the weekend we celebrated birthdays. We just mushed them into one, since all are within about 3 months: mine, Mom's, brother's, sister's. I married someone with a birthday in this time frame, and my brother not only did the same, but also had his daughter in September. (Not sure what my sister was thinking, marrying a June person and having a kid in March!)

I did a fair amount of pouting when the birthday cake ended up having coconut in it. It looked pretty, but I really loathe coconut. Pickle cake? Sushi cake? Tofu cake? Fine. Dandy! Just not a coconut cake, please. Accusations flew... Did Mom really forget my feelings about coconut, or was she trying to sneakily help my cholesterol level? She sounded innocent, but you never know...

I was really surprised when Hubby came home last night with this beautiful cake. He got lots and lots of bonus points for that. Thanks sweetie!

Melbourne

Little animals follow me everywhere.


Even a bad hotel on the water has benefits... A Little Blue heron (Egretta caerulea) fishing near the shore went a long way to assuage my irritation at being refused an extra pillow.


Reason for the trip.


The happy couple: Hubby's brother and our new sister-in-law.


And a very sweet new niece in the bargain.

I didn't know exactly how formal the wedding would be, and was afraid to take my camera, which is not exactly slip-into-the-purse size. Turns out it would have been fine, and I ended up wishing I'd had it. We really need to get one of those tiny ones you can take anywhere.

We drove all the way back in one day, which in retrospect may have been insane. (Any day that includes all three meals on the road is officially too much driving.) Near Talladega the dashboard light said we were nearly out of gas.

So we stopped where we normally would not, and thus were spared being on the road during some freakishly high winds that blew in out of nowhere. I retreated to the back of the store and practiced what I was going to say to the news cameras, when they came to interview me as the only survivor... "They just wouldn't come away from the windows!"

The worst part of storm eventually passed over, but we were a little shaken and had to eat some ice cream to get over it.

Adult Medulloblastoma

It's not such a great picture.

The light level was too low and it turned out grainy, like most of my indoor pictures do.

But I love this photo, because it means that my brother's wife is a cancer survivor. And her hair is growing back!

She had a brain tumor - an adult medulloblastoma. "Adult" because it's normally a tumor that is found in children. It's rare in adults.

Luckily, she was diagnosed quickly after the onset of her symptoms. She had surgery and came through with few serious deficits. She's had a rough time of it though, especially during radiation and chemo, and I didn't want to mention it here before now. But she's doing better every day.

Even if one of her nieces did ask why her hair was growing back in a different color.

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Links:

My sister-in-law said that it helped a lot to be able to speak with other people on this Yahoogroup email list for Adult Medulloblastoma.

Ghosts of Christmas past

December 1961, two years old.

This must have been taken with my grandfather's camera - I don't think we had a color one until many years later.

One of those boxes held a great stuffed tiger, and there was a pink and blue stuffed bear in one of the others. (No I don't remember, I've just got more pictures.)

The table and tea set to the right were the BIG present.


December 1967, with my little brother and sister.

That bear he was sitting on had wheels, and could really scratch up the finish on a floor.

I seem to be holding a Barbie doll, but don't remember playing with them much. (I liked Johnny West dolls better.)

My sister seems happy with her sucker. I think that was her doctor's bag in the foreground.

We always had to wait until my grandfather got there to open the wrapped presents. I remember thinking that he needed to get up a lot earlier.

Christmas notes

Mom's tree


Mom made some horsies for the grandkids. One she had a pattern for, but the other she drew out herself, from a picture in Better Homes and Gardens magazine.


Some cute neices and a handsome nephew, from hubby's side of the family. (Technically not from Christmas, but close enough.) This is before his sister's cats started trying to eat the tree, and it had to be put up much higher.