Digital Mom Meme

January 31, 2010

Some of y’all may know that for the past few months, I’ve been participating in BlogHer’s Family Connections citizen journalism project as a Momspotter. Basically that means I tweet a few times a day with the #momspotting hashtag about how I use technology in my day-to-day parenting life (actually, I talk more about just life, [...]

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Floating In Memories

January 19, 2010

Close your eyes and remember a trip to your grandmother’s house. Wait … hold on … don’t close them yet! Read the post first. I want you to do some visualizing, but I want you to know where we are going with it. You can even use this as a writing prompt, if you like. [...]

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Charge!

December 8, 2009

That has always been my battle cry. “Charge!” I shouted, while waving my American Express card above my head like a flag around which the troops could rally. I have said it in shopping malls, grocery stores, hotels, and restaurants across the United States. I have had more credit cards than Carter had Little Liver [...]

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I Sound Like Grandpa Simpson

December 1, 2009

“So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. ‘Give me five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say.” ~ Grandpa Simpson I just bought a bottle of Gatorade in the [...]

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Only The Caretaker

November 28, 2009

I clutched the tiny leather case close to my heart yesterday for more than an hour, my fingers tracing the cracks in the aged red leather. Placing it on my lap, I gently pulled the snap to open the case, careful not to tear the leather. The contents fairly glowed in the morning sun … [...]

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Poster Child

November 12, 2009

My husband and I were remembering our respective childhoods, when I asked him what posters he had on his wall as a teenager. Every teenager has posters on their wall … and probably have since the first cave teens existed. Didn’t you have posters tacked to the walls, and taped to the doors? Sure you [...]

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The Knight Studio in Kilgore, Texas

October 30, 2009

The internet constantly amazes me. I suppose it can be used for good or evil, but this is Friday, so I’ll focus on only the good. That isn’t hard so hard to do, is it? I enjoy having an encyclopedia at my fingertips, although I am sometimes overwhelmed at the massive amounts of information (and [...]

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Segues

October 13, 2009

Those of us who use search engines on computers are familiar with segues. It means: “to make a transition from one thing to another smoothly and without interruption.” It happens to me every day. I start searching for something, for instance “warning signs of swine flu,” and when I find that I click on a [...]

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A Cook Can’t Have Too Many Potholders

October 10, 2009

Because spinning and weaving are “lost” folk arts, when I demonstrate them in schools I try to show children something to which they might relate. I show them potholders and a potholder loom, because the weaving of potholders was almost a rite of passage for the kids I knew as a child. The weaving of [...]

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Three Days of Peace, Love, and Armadillos

September 6, 2009

Texas had its very own version of “Woodstock” in 1969. It happened in Lewisville, Texas just two weeks after Woodstock. The Texas International Pop Festival was held forty years ago this weekend, and I have to admit to y’all: I lived at the time just a skip down the road in Grapevine, but I don’t [...]

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Up In Smoke

August 17, 2009

Steve’s Barbecue, in Denton, was a colorful little place. You can tell that from the picture, even after the devastating fire that destroyed it. We fell in love with it on our wedding day. Oh, we had known it was there — Steve had been in business for twenty-three years, after all. The little shack [...]

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Love at The State Fair of Texas

August 3, 2009

It was the State Fair of Texas in 1970, long before Big Tex learned to speak Spanish. My sophomore choir was attending the fair to perform on stage that evening along with choirs from all over the state. I was excited because our performance would be followed by a concert featuring Burt Bacharach, whose song [...]

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If It’s Not Fun, Don’t Do It

July 29, 2009

Y’all see this little girl on the slide? That six year old still lives inside my heart some forty-nine years later. I look like I’m on top of the world, don’t I? Well, let me tell you about that day. I remember it well after all these years. Daddy and his brother, Uncle Denny, took [...]

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Uncle Walt’s Band. I Thought They Would Always Be There.

July 22, 2009

My high school friend suggested that we go to hear a concert. It must have been about 1975 or 1976. She said, “I want you to hear Uncle Walt’s Band.” I had no idea her uncle was a musician, but I had grown up hearing my Daddy and his friend E.W. picking on their mandolins [...]

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All Roads Lead To Rhome

July 7, 2009

Daddy prided himself on his superior navigational skills. Bless his heart. Those “skills” were purely a figment of his imagination. He was the stereotypical male who would never dream of asking directions. “I know these roads like the back of my hand,” he said. I don’t think he had ever examined the back of his [...]

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Couldn’t Bring Home The Bacon

June 30, 2009

The recession has hit home to me now. It wasn’t enough that my favorite Starbucks Coffee Shop closed. I expected that. It was down in Colleyville, Texas … and there were four Starbucks within a mile of it (most of them located in grocery stores). I always visited it when I was in the area, [...]

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Chicken’s Good Enough For Me

June 23, 2009

Everyone conceded that my Mamaw, Estelle Cumbie, was the best cook in Wood County. That’s how she caught my Papaw, Guy. Well, maybe she caught him because she was darned good looking, but her cooking helped. Hers wasn’t fancy gourmet cooking; it was just down-home Southern style, flavored with a LOT of bacon grease. Like [...]

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Death & Taxes

March 18, 2009

[ Please note that my emotions are raw at the moment. The post below is not my usual silly, snarky self -- it's just something I had to say. It's not necessary for you to try to say anything ... it will all be OK.] Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and [...]

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I Can Do This

February 16, 2009

I sat on the front porch step with my chin in my hands and an enormous scowl on my face, as I watched the other children gleefully riding their bicycles down the street. My heart was positively green with envy. Granddaddy carefully eased himself down on the step beside me, using his hands to position [...]

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Stuff It

January 29, 2009

When my Daddy cooked, you never quite knew what you were going to get at the end of his labors. I am my father’s daughter in that regard. Recipes are not to be followed, they are merely suggestions. My Daddy was the one who cooked the “dressing,” or “stuffing,” at our house. When Daddy was [...]

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