Family Blog ~ H.D. Edition

Meet Hyatt. Sometimes called H.D. (which I like to think is short for "Heavy Duty" but really its not). There are a lot of wee little ones in my family that I could write about, but for today, I want to write about Hyatt.

Hyatt will soon be celebrating his third birthday. He's growing like a weed. He was the first in a series of wee ones in a long time. Well...maybe not the first, but he was the first that lives close by, in fact, he lives just up the road from me.

Hyatt likes to come down to the house and feed my chickens. He likes for his Aunt Ida to ride him on the four-wheeler while mimicing "Woody Woodpecker" and he likes to fight with me. No real fighting though...because he could easily kick my butt!

He likes "ludlows" too. He always wants a ludlow when he stops by the house, so we try to keep a steady supply for him. What is a ludlow, you ask? Well, that is what H.D. calls popcycles. From this day forward I promise to always call them ludlows though.

Hyatt also likes to call me "Apooh". In the beginning it sounded a bit like "Abu" but I can only assume he decided I no longer reminded him of the monkey in the "Aladin" cartoon, so he changed it to "Apooh". That's fine by me. I've been "Apie" for a great many years and as much as I love my Apie nickname, I can handle another nickname as well.

Hyatt is still pretty little, so its hard to write about all the things he's doing or what he intends to accomplish, but I wanted to add a little light hearted fun to my family blogs and introduce one of the younger set in my bloodline.

Did I mention he is the Karaoke King?

We put 'em to work young in the Nunn family.

The other day I ran into Hyatt and his Mom at the local dollar store. H.D. proceeded to try to scare me with a Halloween spider...then talked me into buying two of them (which our dog Rosie, promptly stole one of them from my bag when I got home, so I guess now that one is her's) and some suckers (but I gave the suckers back to him before I left). There is an advantage to having a kid like him around...he can always tell you what you need, even when you don't know you need it.

Apparently, Hyatt is a little upset with me for moving to Richmond. His Mom said he wants to come down the road and hunt for me and gets sad when he discovers that I'm no longer there. Rest assured though, I will eventually get some ludlows for my apartment and then he can come up and visit any time he likes and eat all the ludlows (and play with my cats) as much as he wants.

Heavy Duty is always welcome at Apooh's crib. :-)

Will you be my friend?

Since I occassionally like to post blogs about members of my family, I thought I would also start posting blogs about my friends. This one, being the first friendship blog, isn't going to be about anyone in particular. Just friendship in general.

I have been very blessed in my life to have some really great friends. Some of them I've known forever (or long enough to count as forever) and some of them for not quite as long. I've had really crappy friends and really wonderful friends. Guy friends. Girl friends. Older, younger, so on and so forth. I like variety (I think its a Gemini trait).

I always thought it was hard for me to make friends, but I think my friends actually think the opposite. I can be a bit shy (okay, okay, I can be REALLY shy) and I don't do well in groups. Past two or three people in a group and I have a tendency to blend into the crowd. Unless I know those people fairly well that is. Apparently though, I'm not quite as shy and backwards as I originally thought.

I made a friend my first day of Kindergarten and she still remains one of my best buddies to this day, but I was braver back then. I talked more and even sang and danced in front of my class. I'm not like that anymore. Not by a long shot. But then one of my newer friends, Maggie, pointed out to me that not too long ago when I tagged her in a photo on Facebook she was a might bit suspicious because she didn't really know me. She was best buddies with my cousin Sam, but we hadn't ever really talked that much...or even really been around each other that much. Come to think of it, I barely even knew Maggie. But she will tell you that it didn't take long before we knew each other quite well. Why? Because I'm about as open and honest as a person can get. This gets me in trouble from time to time, because a lot of people (okay, most people) don't really like that. Most want to hear lies and half-truths as long as they make them feel good. Most people don't want to really know how a person is, because it might mess up the image they have of them in their own heads. I understand all that, but that doesn't make me follow those rules.

So its like I told Maggie, when I decide I'm going to be your friend, then that's just the end of it. It may not work out that I get to keep you as a friend. You may decide you don't like me. I may decide I don't like you. But you better believe that when/if I decide you are going to be my friend, then I will not let up until you are.

Life is better with friends. You can live without them if you really need too, but they make life better. I'm all about making life better.

Couch in a Box

I have furniture! Yay!

Okay, so its still in a box and just thrown haphazardly around the living room, but its progress.

I had to get my mattresses at Ballards because Big Lots was out. Go figure. But on the plus side, Ballards was actually cheaper.

Still didn't solve the couch problem. Nothing I have will fit up the stairs or in the elevator, so I got a futon. They had one left at Wal-Mart and it has wooden arms. Which may not mean much because its still a futon, but at least it will match the rest of my furniture.

So now, eventhough its a mess (and the "couch" is still in the box), I have a bed in my bedroom, a kitchen table/chairs and a shelf in my dining room, and a couch, two end tables, a couple of lamps, an entertainment center, t.v. and dvd player, and two old cedar chests I'm gonna use as tables in my living room. I also finally have stuff hanging on the walls. Its starting to feel like a home.

Expect pictures soon. :-)

Merry Christmas to All!

I can't sleep.

No, not because of insomnia, but because of excitement. You see, I am going to bring Christmas this year to three kids that have never had a Christmas. Here's the story...

My Aunt has three kids  as neighbors (all under the age of 8) who have never had a Christmas before. Sure they know what Christmas is, but they've never had presents. Their parents' have told them that is there is no Santa, so that is why they have never gotten presents. So, while I can fully understand a person's decision not to convince their kids there is a Saint Nicholas, it breaks my heart they've never gotten a single gift at Christmas time.

These same kids have never had a birthday party. Not any of them. They've never had cake and icecream and a day just set aside special only for them.

Their parents have told them its because there are too many of them and they can't afford those things. And while that may very well be true, it breaks my heart all the same.

It takes a LOT to make me cry. I mean, I am the girl that laughs during sappy chick flicks (even one's where the main characters die) and shows very little tender emotions as a general rule. Yet, when my Mom was relaying the story to me tonight, it took every fiber in me not to break down in tears.

These three small kids are too poor to celebrate their birthdays. Too poor to have gifts at Christmas. The oldest child, a girl, is ashamed to go to school and hides from the school bus because there are kids on the bus that make fun of her for the clothes she wears to school each day. She wears flip flops well into the winter months because she says her parents are too poor to afford new shoes.

It kills me to see people like this. No matter what the reasons they have for being this way.

Each Christmas I try to buy a gift for a kid that I think could greatly use it. Usually, this involves that little Salvation Army tree at Wal-Mart. This year, however, I have decided to "adopt" my Aunt's neighbor kids as my "Christmas Kids."

My Aunt took them some used clothes that had belonged to my little cousin and she said they were so excited to get these things. Used items. Things others throw out. And they were thrilled to see them as their own.

Its not about charity. Its not about the Christmas season or Santa Claus. Its completely about doing what feels right in my own heart.

So this year, these kids will have their Christmas. The first one ever.

When December rolls around I will make sure they have gifts to open. They will have new clothes, toys, books, whatever I can afford to buy them. I send money to charities, but the need is great right in my own community. So this year, I'm spending my hard earned money a little closer to home.

If its the last thing I do, these three kids will have Christmas this year.  :-)

Things I've Learned

I've only been sleeping in my new place for a few days now and I've already learned a few things about myself that I didn't quite know before. Someone (i.e. Travis) told me that living on your own would help you to learn new things about yourself...stuff you didn't even realize before. He's right. And its only been a few days, I can't imagine what I'm going to learn over the next couple of years while I live in my little apartment and finish my Masters. Anyway, so here is what I've learned...

1.) I hate dirty dishes. I mean I HATE them! I don't like them being piled up on my kitchen counter. My place isn't the neatest of places right now because I'm still moving and there are boxes piled up everywhere. I'm still trying to figure out where to put everything in my shelves and all that. But I loathe and despise leaving my dirty dishes sitting on the counter. I only have the one small kitchen sink, so washing dishes is kind of a chore. Mostly though, I leave them sitting out because I hate being wasteful. As much as I hate seeing those dishes sitting there, I hate even more thinking about wasting water just to wash a plate and a fork. So I wait until I have a good amount of dishes before I wash them. That takes awhile seeing as how I'm the only person living there. So I suppose I have to put up with the dirty dishes for awhile.

2.) I hate being wasteful. True, I am a little bit on the cheap side when it concerns some things, but mostly I just hate wasting. Case in point, I turn off my A/C (and I will probably do the same for the heat when winter gets here) when I leave the house. I like cooler temps, but I hate paying a high electric bill. This simply means that if I'm not there, then the a/c is not on. In the winter, I will actually keep my place a tad bit cooler than most people in order to save on heating costs. No worries though, if you come for a visit there will be plenty of throws lying around for you to use. I do this because like I said, I'm cheap, but also because I hope its a little better for the environment. That's what I tell myself anyway. I also have a tendency to re-use items that others throw out. For example, I bought a pack of plastic cups to use before I got my dishes moved up there. Those bad boys are lasting quite a while because I wash them like I would regular glasses. I'll do the same for disposable plates, eating utensils, and packaging. I even save my plastic shopping bags to use later. I feel like a Depression Era kid. Like I'm the little old granny lady that says, "Don't throw out that pickle jar. Wash it out. You can use it for something later." I'm not sure WHY I'm this way, but I figure it must be some bygone influence from my Grandmother (who really was a Depression Era kid).

3.) I'm not a neat freak, but I certainly like to keep things tidy. I think its because I'm a tad bit more aware of how people will view me if they stop by and see a messy house. I mean, I have a lot of stuff, but even with a lot of stuff, you can arrange it in a way to where it just looks "homey" and not cluttered. You would NEVER have guessed this if you had seen my bedroom at my parents' place. That thing looks like a tornado ripped through it. But for my apartment, other than the moving clutter, everything is kept pretty tidy. I'm even a little anal as to how things are put away in the cabinets. You know...cans go here, boxes go here, cooking stuff goes there, so on and so forth. I was a little shocked to figure this out, but maybe its not so odd. I mean, my Mom always said that my room looked horrible, but my sock drawer looked like an army drill sergeant had organized it.

4.) I hate silence. Maggie Jarvis came by to visit me one day and said something along the lines of, "I know how you are, April. You like people. You'll always try to have people around." Hmmmm...really? I always thought I hated people. No one in particular, just the general population of rude, loud mouthed folks that get on my nerves on a seemingly daily basis. However, Maggie may be right. I may like people better than I think. I guess its a Gemini trait. Anyway, I hate the silence of my new place. For now I have no radio or t.v. Truth is, I will have a t.v. but no cable. I hate spending hours and hours watching television when I could be doing something else. Something more productive. But I do LOVE music and I intend for my apartment to be filled with music all the time. Right now though, I don't have any music playing devices moved in, so its a sad and silent little place right now.

5.) I hate coming home to an empty apartment. Not that I want someone to move in with me. I actually quite enjoy knowing that it is all mine, but I will be very happy when I get my two little cats moved in with me, so that it doesn't feel so empty anymore. I can already hear Emmie's frantic meows when she realizes I'm home and she wants a treat. Or Bart's bothersome habit of trying to "fix" my hair whenever I sit down.

6.) I eat a LOT healthier at my place than I do at home. I'm not sure why this is, but I assume its because I do all the shopping. I mean, I bought my own groceries at home too, but Mom bought groceries for everyone, which means there was a steady supply of sugary treats hiding around the house. The only non-healthy stuff at my place is a pack of Vanilla Zingers on my counter and a pint of Ben & Jerry's in the freezer. But who can fault a girl for having zingers and peanut brittle ice cream. I mean, c'mon! Mostly though, everything is low-fat, fresh, whole wheat, and all that jazz and surprisingly, I also eat a lot less of it.

7.) Along the same lines of eating a lot less, I've also discovered that I can't sit still. I just can't. I'm not a lazy person anyway, but I hardly have time to do anything that would count as exercise. However, starting next month I'm joining the gym across the road. I had already made up my mind to do so, but after staying at my place a few days, I've decided that if I don't, I will go crazy. Its either join a gym or get a second job, because I can't stand sitting still for very long. I have cleaned that apartment so many times in the past three days that I'm sick too death of the smell of bleach and Lysol. I don't want to go out shopping because, like I said before, I'm cheap and I don't want to spend all my money. I could study...but who the heck wants to spend all their daylight hours doing that?! So, I'll join the gym.

So that's that, a few of the things I've learned about myself in just a few days.

Bye, bye Baby Girl

Today I finally got to move some furniture into my apartment. So exciting!!! I now have a kitchen table fitting snuggly in a corner of my green room (aka the "Baby Bop" room). I also have a bed sitting in my bedroom. I don't have my mattress just yet, but there is a good reason for this. Dad seems to think that the set of box springs that came with the bed are more that alright still (eventhough the bed itself is a bazillion years old, but more on that in a minute). So I decided to wait until I got word back from the house as to whether or not the old springs were good enough, before I go purchase a whole new set. I also got my two end tables moved and I bought a couch! Yay, me! (And thank you Ellen and Daniel Nalley.) BUT...I couldn't get the darn thing to fit through the door. I live on the second floor of the building and try as we might, the couch would not fit through the stairway door or the elevator. Good news though: Mom is going to trade me couches and her's should fit just fine. In the meantime, I'm sleeping on the couch cushions on the floor. Sad, I know, but I think it will make me appreciate my bed that much more.

On to the bed...

I'm really excited about it and here is why. First, I don't have to buy a new one. Yay, for saving money! But mostly I'm excited because the bed originally belonged to my Grandparents. My Mamaw Mae and Papaw Bob were the first owners of that metal frame and they passed it on to my Dad. I remember it in our old house and Mom and Dad used it up until we built the new place. So, it may not actually be an antique and worth anything to anyone else, but the sentimental value of it makes it priceless to me. We had forgotten about it being in the shed, but Dad drug it out the other day and it was still in good condition and I like it just fine. Dad told me today, "Now, if you get tired of that bed, you know you ain't to sell it or throw it out or anything." I told him, "Ummm....who do you think you are talking to, buddy? You know better than to think I would do something like that." He said, "Yeah, I know. I just wanted to mention it, just in case." Seems I get my sentimental side from my Father.

Regardless, its a bed. No mattress but a bed all the same and I'm very pleased with it.

Tonight I get to spend my first night in the apartment. Tomorrow I have classes all day and then I have to go straight to work. I'll also be spending Monday night at my new place and coming back to JC on Tuesday to load up more stuff to move. So hopefully by Wednesday I will at least have a mattress on my bed. That should be just lovely.

Anyway...

The title of this post? Well, today Mom was cleaning off my tables and getting them ready to be moved. She was dragging one of the end tables out of my Grandma's old house where they had been stored and they are really heavy tables, so she asked Dad, "You wanna help me move this last table out of the house?" Dad said, "Nope." Mom asked, "Well, why not?" To which Daddy replied, "Because, you are trying to move my Baby Girl out."

Awwwww.... :-)

The Thing About Ohio is....

So tonight (well, its 3 in the morning as I write this, so maybe I should say "last night") was the Kings of Leon concert at Riverbend. They put on a great show. I had a great time. But that's not the "fun" stuff from the night. I'll not bore you with a music review in other words. Instead, I'll tell you about my near collision and people watching.

First, the collision. I went to the concert with my cousin Emily and we were nearly to our exit. So close in fact, that Em was applying a fresh coat of makeup to her face when WHAM!!! I nearly slammed her through the windshield. Makeup flew everywhere. Why did I do this, you ask? Do I just enjoy giving my passengers whiplash? Should you never ride with me anywhere ever again? (Don't answer that last one.) WELLLLLL....

While driving across the bridge (this is the stuff I have nightmares about mind you), something happened to four cars in front of us. I'm not sure what exactly because it all happened VERY fast and I didn't see it too well. But here is what I did see: Three lanes of traffic going 65 to 75 mph down I-275 on the bridge. Alluva sudden, little green Cavalier directly in front of me, squeals tires, swerves towards the side of the bridge, comes to a sudden stop, and glass and fragments of car parts are everywhere. It appeared as though the Cavalier hit something pretty darn hard with its front end. There was enough damage to it, that I'm about 99% positive it was totaled. I'm still not quite clear on what it hit. Regardless, I came one ace of hitting it in the arse. And the car behind me? Same deal, only I would have been crunched in the bum.

Its amazing how things happen so fast and yet in slow motion when you wreck or even just witness one. Like I said, I was far enough back from the green car that I don't know exactly who hit who or any of the details. When we got around them, I saw that there were three other cars involved, one being a cop car. But for all intents and purposes, I swear it looked like the green car just smashed head on into some sort of invisible force field. Anyway, in a matter of seconds that seemed like they took forever...I saw the break lights of the green car, saw the smoke from the tires, heard the all too familiar sound of metal crunching, hit my breaks, saw the car behind me was going to rear-end me if I didn't do something quick, so when I hit the breaks, I turned towards the concrete wall of the bridge. I got stopped in the break down lane of the bridge with plenty of room to spare between me and the green car, and the car behind me managed to get stopped without rear-ending me. This was only due to the fact that at the last second I whipped it in the break down lane. Otherwise, I would have gotten hit the ass yet again. I looked in the rearview mirror to see the people in the car behind me high fiving each other on managing not to get in the accident. Personally, I was still trying to keep my burger down.

I swear, I've had nightmares of a) wrecking on the interstate, b) getting into a multi-car pile up, and c) wrecking on a bridge. I narrowly (we are talking inches here people) avoided all three of these things this evening. It was so close in fact that Emily was congratulating me and telling me how impressed she was with my "stunt car" driving abilities. She said, "How did you even manage to think to get into the break down lane?" Its simple really. I've been in enough accidents that now my brain is pretty much programed how to react automatically. In a matter of seconds here is what was going through my head: First, I can't swerve to the left because I'm on the damn interstate and in the far right lane. If I get in the left, I'll get hit. Even when breaking, I didn't just SLAM on the breaks because I knew if I did, I would lose control of the car. So I did hit the breaks pretty hard, but it was a steady pressure. I saw the car behind me was too close and knew I'd get hit by them when I did get stopped and it undoubtedly would have rammed me into the back of the green car, so...seeing that the break down lane was clear and the car in front of me wasn't blocking my way, I turned the wheel right to get over there. I was moving slow enough by that point that I knew I would be stopped before I hit the wall. Phew! See how fast a veteran car accident victim can think? Yep. That's how my mind works these days. I look for danger around every corner when I'm on the road. I always know where the other drivers are and try to telepathically link up to them to know what their next move will be (okay, maybe not that last part, but I wish I knew how to do that).

Anyway, I don't know if anyone was seriously hurt or not, but the green car driver was injured. He managed to get out the car and seemed pretty dazed and confused and there was blood. Not a lot but some. Regardless, I know how that dude feels, so I can sympathize and I hope everyone made it out of there okay.

On to the concert we went and that is where we met "Pigtails". I don't know the girl's real name, but she had pigtails and so that is what we called her. Of all the entertaining people we watched at the show, she was by far the most entertaining. She danced the entire time. It cracked me up, because it reminded me of how I dance when I've had a few too many. I swear, if she had broke out some clogging moves, we would have been soul sisters where it concerns our awesome dance moves. She never once finished a cigarette, but I swear she put away at least a case and a half of Bud Light before the night was over. Girlfriend could DRINK! But the best part of her shenanigans? She got in a fight with some dude. The guy was annoying as all get out. He kept yelling at the band "You suck!" and "Play a good song, you Douchebags!" Well, okay idjit, if you don't like the band, why are you even there? Pigtails must have read my mind, because after a few songs of listening to him in the background, she marched her drunk little butt up there and got in his face. I don't know what she said exactly, but it worked. The guy left. I mean, just left the entire show. Its okay dude, I wouldn't have wanted to mess with her either. She looked like she would be hard to handle.

Other than Pigtails, we also got to watch a girl do drunken cartwheels down the hill. That's always fun. We watched her friends dancing and quite frankly, I'm not really sure what they were doing. Maybe some of you men folk reading this can explain this to me...what is the purpose of dancing like a jackass while holding a cup of beer on the top of your head? Either way, it was funny as all get out to watch. We also saw one girl get packed out and another get so sick that she couldn't even move to puke. She just sat right down and puked between her legs. And to top off the night, we sat behind this group of teenagers: one girl, three boys. Obviously they were two couples. As one very drunken girl was getting lead out of the field, one of the gay boys threw a cigarette at her and yelled some sort of bad name. I'm not sure why he did that because that's not a good idea at a concert where people are wasted before they ever make it to their seats, but he did it all the same. When one of her male crew came over to confront him (aka. pick a drunken fight), the chick in the group steps between them and says, "It wasn't him a**hole. It was me. I called her a b*tch. What are you going to do about it? I'll f*ck you up!" The guy left.

So what have we learned from this concert? Two things: 1.) There are invisible force fields that randomly pop up in Ohio. Consider yourself warned. 2.) Girls that go to Kings of Leon concerts are bad asses and given enough booze, they will kick the ass of any boy they come in contact with.