An issue of integrity, kind of...

So, due to some creative phone-plan contriving, my niece has ended up with a cell phone and texting abilities...Yes, she is seven...

This situation begs for mischief and corruption. . . can you really blame me??

Tonight's interaction:

HP: Hi
DRC: Hi! Go hug your mom and tell her she has spagetti eyeballs and is beautiful, ok?
HP: No
DRC: Why? She will like it and give you a big hug, and I will give you a quarter


This is why I should not be trusted around children.

and it wasn't even that funny...

I made a boob joke tonight and my mom laughed.
Stay tuned for the ending of the world. . .

hand cramp, lotsa postage...oh my...

I started a list of things to write my parents 'thank you' notes for. . . BAD IDEA!
I may never finish. . .



[I almost wish I hadn't asked them to quit reading my blog now.  Of course they obliged, because they are ridiculously amazing.]

throwback

They made me.  They are my forever favorites.

christmas photos, featuring Jax

Harleigh likes "helping" Jax open presents.

 

 He's easily amused.  Must get that from his aunt.

 

He likes to put things on his head.  He really likes when I put things on his head.

(I got worried he hadn't out-grown the whole baby's soft spot head thing, but word on the street says he's fine)

 

Jax and Lily, their family's new Weimeriener.  I thought my sister Santa was crazy for getting another dog but this one's  like a doggy prodify compared to her other two flunkies.

shadowbox your ears

My parents are fairly anti-stuff, especially stuff I can afford, so finding good Christmas presents is difficult.  This year my dad got a Weird Al cd and bumpons.  Awesome, right?

My mom's present was a few days late but turned out pretty nice.  When I was home for Thanksgiving I found a box of my grandpa's medals from his time in the Army Air Corp, so I borrowed those and a few pictures and arranged them in a shadowbox for her.

Here's a close-up of the inside:






































I tried a few different mounting techniques with a mat board background but ended up using some heavy scrap fabric and painting it black.  Its not perfect and as I continue to learn more about framing I may steal it back and re-work some parts.  But for now, voila.

tour de hoot

Video from a recent ride, featuring my dad at 1:07 and 4:42

bunny ears and miley at the park

My niece is six.
We partied hard. . .



The birthday girl and "Pa." Typical shenanigans.






I made this inspired by the party theme.
Copyright laws? What?






Baby Jax et moi. J'adore.

Remembering is bittersweet

I can't deny that certain songs, no matter how much I hate them, are linked to memories. Unsually specific but fragmented, these are sometimes my clearest recollections.

For example, both "My Name Is" and "Slim Shady" make me think of a week at my grandparents house.

It was Spring Break. I didn't have much to do, and being a 14 or 15 year old I had not yet learned how to entertain myself, so I watched a lot of tv. At home we had a more basic cable package, but my grandparents had what seemed like endless options. That week I was introduced to, and became hooked on, MTV. There still showed music videos then, and I watched Eminem over, and over, and over. . . I'm not sure if I even liked the song, but I was so enthralled with music videos that I never changed the channel.

The important things are sketchy. . . It was either the spring break of ninth or tenth grade. I want to say I was with my mom only, but that doesn't make sense. I can't remember anything else about that trip.

Except that, I think, my grandmother was dying.

Her cancer had come back and was destroying her quickly. I remember, later, standing by her bed, barely recognizing her. It was, of course, not her real bed, but a hospital bed they had moved into the bedroom. I remember sitting beside my grandpa when the coroners came to get her body. . . watching them push a covered stretcher through the living room. I remember walking beside him at the funeral, past the casket, for one last goodbye.

I wish I could remember more. More from the happy times, from the remission, when I usually forgot about the cancer. Most of my memories are short and vague, supplemented and sustained by stories and photos.

grapefruit juice.
onions.
the horse across the fence (he was allergic to carrots).
orange and grape soda in the garage refridgerator.
over-sensitive smoke detector.
old man pjs.
"yonder."
wheel of fortune.
bedspreads.
aquanet.
cushioned toilet seat.
boston terriers down the street.
grand.
westark (pre-uafs).
dr. floyd
front porch glider, green.
the crown vic.
long necklaces.
white teddy bears.
touch lamps.
orangsicles.

The only progenitors my family's gonna see for awhile...

Jax (Jaxon)




Harleigh



Yep, they're the cutest...

and the beat goes on...

One major phrase that needs to be eliminated from my internal monologue:

"What's wrong with you?"





Yesterday it hit me hard. I felt like all the junk with my wreck and bank account just too much, but I knew it shouldn't be. I should be able to handle it, right?

Blame it on the past, the chemicals, the depression, or even the rain...but I can't. My mom came up this afternoon and we ran errands, including getting a rental car. And by car, I mean this:

(Yeah, that's all they had.)

Unfortunately, my anxiety manifested itself in impatience and irrational intolerance, and since my primary interaction was with my mom, she got the brunt of it (although I did get my rental for $3-a-day less for arguing with them). She was going out of her way to help me, so she definitely didn't deserve anything but gratitude. But. . . I can't explain it. I have no excuses. After she left I laid down, sleeping off and on. Each time I woke I had more anxiety and bad feelings.



Its impossible to explain how I feel. There are no labels. . . Its a chaos of extremes battling inside me. They often contradict themselves, like a longing for solitude coupled with frightening loneliness.





My doctor added something new.
Here's hoping for high success and low side effects. . .

a few thoughts to assure you I'm still alive

My back muscles feel like they could errupt into a frenzy of tightened spasming knots any second.


I'm getting a new neighbor. That'll take some getting used to.


My nephew is a little man.

Oh Baby Jax...





We sell a lot of charms/pendants. There are a lot of typical styles like crosses, hearts, lockets, etc. . . but they're beginning to get weirder.
Today I found this:


An angel, Saturn, cheese, scissors, a monkey, and asprin.

Yeah. Sure, why not...




Recent quotes that caught my eye...

"Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love." -St Francis of Assisi

"Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -Howard Thurman

"Assert your right to make a few mistakes. If people can't accept your imperfections, that's their fault." -Dr. David M. Burns

matchy-matchy

7 minutes left...

I'm thankful for:

• My family. My parents have been seriously amazing through all the junk thats happened over the past several months. They've supported me without question, even when I make crazy decision like going to hospitals in Texas and quitting my job. They've been my financial bailout. They bite their tongue and listening to me cry without offering a million suggestions to fix it (which is huge).
• Progress. I'm still a mess, but its hard for me to believe how much has changed in the past two months, even the past two weeks. Tonight I realized that I'm finally doing better now than I was before going to the hospital. I painted Sunday. I'm reading again. I'm no longer overwhelmed with the desire to end it. The anxiety is becoming more manageable.
• My job. Its frustrating and humbling to work a low-paying retail job despite having a (very expensive) college degree, but I don't think one can ever learn enough about humility.
• A warm apartment and comfortable bed to sleep in. I'm a huge wimp when its cold outside, but my temporary discomfort makes me think about how many people in my own city don't have a home or a warm place to sleep. It breaks my heart, it challenges me, it reminds me that it is by His grace that I am where I am.
• Community. I'm learning so much from these people about real community and how to live love.
• The peace that makes no sense and can only come from the Spirit.

There's much, much more, but I've got to at least try to sleep since I'm working nine and a half hours tomorrow. Why is it so much easier to write after midnight?

Final thoughts, from Jamie Tworkowski:

Maybe Thanksgiving is a chance to remember that which is true, and to say it in the face of the lies. i think it's important to remember that the story isn't over, that there are things worth fighting for and living for, that beauty still happens and love still happens. Hope and redemption as well.

an excerpt...

from a letter I received today:

I'm still reading the book about depression and it has caused me to think about certain things in a different way. For instance, wanting to die is not necessarily wanting to commit suicide. Another thing thats ironic is that legal drugs take a long time to work and illegal drugs work immediately but just for a short time. Another thing is that people make statements like "I'm going to have a nervous breakdown" and "I need my medication," and they are made in a humorous light, but they really have no idea. (emphasis mine)

The book he referred to is The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon. I highly recommend it, for those who suffer from depression as well as those who do not.

Devil's Den Recap

Its been a couple weeks since the mini family vacay, but here are a few overdue stories/memories/etc...


Shortly after we got there this little angel walks into my room and says "I love you Darcie."

She's never said that before...I melted.



Here's our cabin from the outside:


Normal, right? Lemme tell ya...this place was nicer than my apartment. Check out this tub:

Yes please!


Dad (Pa) read Har a bedtime story. She sat still for about 12 minutes, which might be a record.



Mom and Polly had a bit of trouble with the grill. Apparently the charcoal goes UNDER the grate thing...



On Saturday we went to my cousins. It was a 16 mile drive on state highway, but it took us over half an hour because most of it wasn't paved. Again, this is state highway...

Harleigh and I entertained ourselves in the backseat.


Then we met an elk.

I named him Ralph.


My cousin, the rockstar, gave us a personal show:



Dad caught the big one.



Silly daddy.



I shot skeet.

I totally hit the first one too, because I'm awesome like that.


After a nap on the way drive back to the cabin I went looking for the devil of the dens.
I didn't find him, but I did find a place that looked suspiciously like the home of this fellow:


I'm quite sure he's hiding in there somewhere...



Lee Creek, and hair that needs some help.



The spillway...



The fam...



The end...

Devil's Den: The Pretties

Catching Up

Its been an exciting week in the land of DRC.

On Tuesday Ellen and I went to the TOMS event at Whole Foods.




Generally I'm afraid of commitment when it comes to shoes (much like curtains, hair cuts, and boys), so I avoid buying new ones til I absolutely must. I've wanted these for awhile those, and hello stimulus check, so here's to my first pair of new shoes in a year[ish].




Maybe Andy Warhol was right. My name is in print! It may only be in the feedback section, but hey, baby steps folks, baby steps. . .






Speaking of baby steps. . . Harleigh is going to be a big sister!



I've chilled out quite a bit in the last couple years, but my OBU pals will tell you that for awhile every thing out of my mouth was "Baby Har-Har this" or "Harleight that." She really is the cutest kid ever. She'll be 5 in a couple months and that blows me away. She makes my heart happy.

A classic:



And a bit more recent:





I love her.