Leftovers

Pictures from the graduation banquet, graduation ceremony, and crawfish boil have filtered in, but I haven't had a chance to get them on here, so I'll do that this morning.

First though, Mama and I had one of our rare going-out-after-dark ventures last night. Normally by dark I have the floodlights on, the animals in, and no intention of driving anywhere. But last night we went over to my cousin Pat's (and Tim's) house to enjoy the company of more cousins, 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins, and cousin-in-laws. The occasion was the graduation of their son Matthew from Macon East High School (hope I have that right). It's hard to believe how fast time passes. It seems such a short time ago that Pat was getting married and Emily was her flower girl. Now my "baby" cousins have grandchildren. I regret having this big gap of time when our lives went separate ways. I'm so glad we landed in Montgomery where Pat and I could re-connect. My Aunt Merle, who died last month, was one of my favorite aunts, and she kept me supplied with lots of little cousins to play with. It's fun now to hear the girls talk about the things their mother did and things that happened with their growing up that I missed. I have a wonderful picture of us all with our grandmother taken Christmas of 1970 that I'm threatening to put on the blog when i find it. It's filled with plaid and bell-bottoms; in fact, the youngest, Donna, remembers the plaid poncho she had on in the picture. My grandmother lived little more than a year after that but would have 2 great-grandchildren born before she died.

So not to forget the good time we had at graduation with the upcoming wedding, here are a few pictures.

Natalie's dad Sammy explaining the finer points of eating crawfish.


At this point, we weren't sure there was going to be enough for everyone.

Too Tired for Words

Or maybe just a few. Some pictures mainly.

I went out early this morning to take a picture of the white cosmos, and Emily went out with me and trimmed the little maple whose life she saved last year. They have a very close bond. Here, she's contemplating how practical and cheap a maple bouquet would be. Admiring her new haircut/highlights that I was afraid to ask the price of - one of those once a decade things. I guess she deserves it.

  The cute little white cosmos that I grew from seed this spring and went out in a storm to save.

Emily and I are quite noble when it comes to plants. She's learned the names of 5 or 6 flowers now but always fails to recognize them - except for dusty miller - and that one she never misses.

She likes to throw out names like lantana and ranunculus like she's an expert.

This little sewing project has something to do with the wedding. Now that I've taken the quilt to the quilter, my machine was lonely. This will appear again in wedding pictures.

 
I went to Cosco this afternoon, among other errands, and hauled big cases of soft drinks and plastic plates and stuff home. One more thing to check off my list - which is bigger than I like to think about. When I do think about it, my eyelids get heavy, and I think about how long it is until bedtime. Four hours to work before that though.

I completely missed getting any graduation pictures on here. Maybe in a day or so.

12 days - Very Longwinded Post

This is scaring me - the little time left. But. We did get a few more things crossed off our list today.

One thing still on my list is to learn to take into consideration (every time) that just driving an hour or so up I-85 causes me to lose an hour. I overlooked that fact again. Emily wanted to meet at 11:00 but I wanted to meet earlier because I know how much difference an hour can make when you're desperate to get things done. I left in time to get gas and get my car washed and was sitting there muttering about the car wash thing not taking a debit/credit card when Emily called and reminded me I was already an hour late. She liked it but me, not so happy about it. I spurned the car wash and headed up the interstate with a dirty car.

It was a good trip, and I found my exit with just minor teeth clenching. It should be against the rules for hundreds of cars to pour out of the exit ramp of another interstate and into the lane I need to get into. I don't trust myself to change lanes without looking over my shoulder 3 or 4 times, and by that time a car has usually come out of nowhere. The only way I would be completely happy with interstate driving would be for me to be the only car going in one direction. The other direction can have as many as it wants.

I beat Emily to the house (where the wedding is to be) and got to spend some time talking with Meghan's mother, Marilyn. We haven't seen each other since the girls were in school - what, 12 years ago? - but we have MUCH in common, having lived with these 2 daughters.

We each remember different things about the beginning of their freshman year. Emily had chosen a small liberal arts college in NC, St. Andrews, and we went up for the freshman orientation. She met in little groups, mingled, and did all the little fun things on the schedule and then came up to Mike and me at lunch and said, "I hate it here." That's a bad feeling, to think about leaving your child at a place where she didn't meet one person she felt anything in common with, so we went to lunch in a despondent mood. At some point during lunch, this beautiful tall girl said something to Emily, and they sat down with their trays, and I've never seen a bond form before my very eyes like it did that day. They talked, smiled, laughed, subtly pointed out their parents (small waves) and laughed some more. I'm not sure where Meghan had been during the morning, but knowing Meghan, she had created her own orientation that was far more interesting than what was going on elsewhere. We met her dad sitting on the steps outside looking about as down as we had been, but we enjoyed meeting him and noting what looked like a friendship starting between our girls - one that definitely formed and grew and is still going strong today.

I found this picture from 1997 or so at St. Andrews. They look SO young. And so beautifully attired.

Marilyn's memory puts me in an awful light, but I let it go on because she tells a funny story. I've heard this through the years, and I always protest but to no avail. It involves the first day of school when they moved into their dorm rooms. Everyone who has sent a child to college knows that you have to be creative to find space in those little rooms, so we spent an afternoon at the Container Store (in Atlanta, of course, but we lived near there then, and it wasn't intimidating). Among the things we purchased, Emily of her own free will bought some drawer dividers for socks and underwear. I don't know why. Maybe we thought going away to school would make her use drawers instead of the floor for her clothes. That had to be it. As Marilyn tells it, she and Meghan burst into the room with bulging luggage and clothes and shoes spilling out everywhere and dumped it all into a messy pile in the middle of the room. She said, "Then I looked over, and there was Emily's mother standing at the chest neatly folding underwear into little bins, and I knew I was the worst mother in the world. This was what a REAL mother was supposed to do." That may be the first time in the world I've ever made anyone feel inferior. I hate to think she thought those things about me all these years. I think any doubt about Emily's neatness was laid to rest when we moved them out in May. Think clothes, shoes, books, papers, food, more clothes, more shoes at least a foot deep covering the whole floor. That has to be the biggest mess I've seen, and it seemed to take days to get it all loaded up and into the car. I don't believe we went up there the 2nd year!

Anyway, back to today, there was definitely a lot of pacing and measuring and what iffing for an hour or so. It looks like we're going to try to fit everyone into 2 terraces instead of going across the street to the park. The park is beautiful, but it has several drawbacks. In one direction, there is a children's playground and another direction a group of apartments. It's a public park so it would be hard to control who might show up and be in your pictures or what kids might be screaming on the playground during the ceremony. Besides, after all this rain, it was downright boggy and squishy to walk across. Mama will use her wheelchair probably, and she would never be able to get there. One of my main problems with it would be someone having to carry 75 chairs a couple of blocks and set them up and then having to carry them back after the (very brief) ceremony.

SOOO - there are still a few glitches, but it's doable to set up chairs on the 2 terraces and have people sitting on the rock wall or even standing. With no attendants and no special music, it should be short and very sweet. There's a perfect place for the band and the food table, and the front porch has a pretty little niche that's just perfect for the cake cutting and for more people to sit and eat. The yard is beyond beautiful, and with a little work, I think this will work out better.

We love last minute changes! Good ones. The rental service was a good experience. At first, the lady misunderstood and thought the wedding was THIS Saturday and said there were no white chairs left and that they would have to deliver Wednesday and pick up the next Wednesday - 7 days for these people to have a yard full of extra table and chairs. Quite deflating until we realized we were on different wavelengths, and with May 30th in the computer, it came together very nicely. Everything gets delivered on Friday (so we'll have plenty of time to play with arrangements) and will be picked up Monday.

For some reason, I didn't take many pictures today (a lot of the time was spent in the passenger seat of my car, wheeling around corners and praying). I wish I had taken some in the neatest place we went today - the others being the rental company and Publix. It's called Twelve Boutique and is on Piedmont. I couldn't find a web site, but these reviews sum up exactly how we felt about it. http://atlanta.citysearch.com/profile/41798548#profileTab-reviews We had no idea what to expect, but Marilyn had recommended it, so Em went in with her wedding gown and not much of an idea of what she wanted. John took a look at the dress, asked her some questions and starting laying various flowers against the dress, and we all got a little excited. Emily said she never thought she would find someone whom she was willing to trust to "surprise" her and just know it would be perfect. I noticed in one of the reviews that there was "no baby's breath in sight," as that is one of the few flowers Emily despises - the other being geraniums. Another requirement was no pink. It's easy to keep the final bouquet a secret, because except for the main colors, no one knows what it's going to be like.

I know no one will read this far, but we won't remember all this if I don't record it. And going in Publix at 6:00 on a Monday afternoon is worth remembering. Em needed to pick up some food items, and we decided to do the sushi-for-her and sub-for-me menu again. We took it back to the G's yard and ate it on one of the terraces and made more plans. Oh, I forgot, we did go in Ikea for fabric, napkins, and votives. You could tell it had been a long day by our fighting over napkins. Me - "I don't think the blue goes with anything." Em - "We LIKE the blue." But how about just the orange and yellow without the blue." "FINE (throwing the blue ones back) but we already have the blue ones at home, and we're using them." "Well, use the blue ones if you like them so much even though they don't match and I hate them." Hugs all around.

The girls sent me on my way home, once more cruelly pointing me to the interstate and saying, "Just go down there and turn left and then right and go over the railroad tracks and be in the left lane and getting on the interstate is no problem." Emily had to hurry away, but Meghan patiently stood there at the car and drew me a detailed map (with pictures) of my route - which I found very easily - but I was not happy about entering I-75/85 and being in the exit lane for I-20. Yuck. It worked out fine though, and no one got mad with me, and I didn't get mad with more than 3 people, and now I'm safe at home.

I see I've received (finally) some graduation pictures from Mike. I may backtrack to last weekend when I see them, but that will be tomorrow - and shorter!

Count Down - 13 days

It's beginning to look a little like a wedding. It's about time, I think.

Emily wanted a veil just for some pictures, so I made one in about 10 minutes and attached it to a comb. Not so pretty on a lamp but adequate for the few minutes it will be worn. It needs trimming and shaping too.



I didn't go to Atlanta yesterday, but I appreciate the prayers of everyone who thought I did. That's happening tomorrow. Saturday was spent shopping for Ryan a suit and tie, and your future mother-in-law is not someone you want tossing in her suggestions and looking pained at the mention of prices. They did fine without me and found exactly what they were looking for. Good price too, I hear.

The meeting at the house was very productive too. I think we have a clearer idea of where things will be set up and when things will be done. I had just the smallest moment of panic when Emily called just now and started talking excitedly. I heard only, "Everything's changed." Okay. Good. Changing everything less than 2 weeks away was not what I wanted to hear. But it's all good - better even. She's happy about the new set-up, and now we have to measure for tables and make decisions about rentals tomorrow. That's our biggest thing to get done. Well, my biggest thing will be getting to the house, but I think I have good directions.

Then to the florist and confirming the cake design and looking for shoes and lavender and talking about the shower and when everyone will arrive and when to get hair done.

I'm determined not to drive home after dark tomorrow.

I got these little guest bags made for Ryan's nieces and nephews. Oh, another thing is to look for T-shirts for them.

Here's another bigger one I did, but I think it needs more work - another flower or something. No problem. I love punching out those little shapes. It's so satisfying. They pop out perfectly every time. The colors are not true here. The flowers are orange and red-orange.


Enough fun. Time for seriousness. This is how the next two weeks will go.

This week is just working and running around doing errands until the weekend when Emily gets here. I'm not sure when she's going to ATL, but I go Monday. I'm loving having 10 days off!

Monday and Tuesday, we'll do whatever needs to be done - probably a lot!

Wednesday is the day Ryan's family arrives and also Mike and Elise. Unfortunately, I won't be there. Good excuse not to have to pick up anyone at the airport! I have to come down and take Mama to the beauty shop and get a haircut myself and take Darby to be boarded and contact my cousins about feeding the cats. That should be a fun day. Then my brother will come get Mama whenever they decide; they'll take her to Birmingham and get her to the wedding from there.

Thursday - I'm not sure about the morning, but the shower is that afternoon, tentatively on the Barner's beautiful deck. Hmmm. Visions of sitting there with my feet up and relaxing, enjoying the company and listening to the birds sing.

Friday, it gets serious. That's probably when all the hair and make-up and manicure/pedicures will happen. Sometime that afternoon, Kathy will arrive, and I hope to get us all together, maybe by the pool with something cold to drink to do some serious planning. We'll go to the house and make the final decisions about where to put tables and stuff and maybe do some decorating. I'm completely staying out of anything to do with lights and lanterns.

Friday night, we go out to eat with Ryan's family at Six Feet Under. I saw the menu! No one's going to have to drag me there.

During the night, we'll pray for a beautiful day the next day - with sunshine - but not too much.

Saturday morning will probably start off fine, and then panic will set in about 1:00. I don't even want to think about what will go on that day. But at some point - we'll have a wedding and then a big party afterwards and be very happy.

The best man spent the weekend with me.

BETTER - AND FINIS

And the border is on.

I can't believe it's done. Ready to take to the quilter. I'm so afraid to look closely, afraid I'll see a mistake. The border went on nicely in spite of my having lost the directions. I've had this kit for about a year now and have been working on it since February, and the directions have all been right there. Now the part that tells me what and how to sew the borders and binding is missing. Luckily I cut everything out the first day, so it was just a matter of matching again. I left off one border that I didn't like. I may get the quilter to put the binding on, according to how much time I have left (and whether or not she's still speaking to me when she gets that far).

I may be losing it, because I'm already starting to look for the same fabrics to do it again, this time with no pressure. I really do like it in spite of my muttering and fussing about it. We'll see how this fits in with all the other 500 projects I have lined up.

OOPS

I was so close. SO close. I decided I would sew all the panels of the quilt together tonight and get that far, so tomorrow I would have only to attach them to each other and sew on the border. I got a little bit too much in a hurry at the last.

 
The top 2 panels and the bottom right panel are fine - nice little design - but look what happens when one row gets sewn upside down (the second row up in the bottom left panel - chaos!! After I posted this and was reading over it, I saw another wayward square on the bottom right panel. Heck. It's never fun to take out stitches - 2 whole rows in this case, (plus 1 square) but that's a necessary evil in sewing. Now that I know the problem, it shouldn't take long to fix. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty pleased with it - IF it all matches up tomorrow! If I weren't a procrastinator and it weren't 12:30 a.m., I would fix it now. I'd probably end up making a bigger mess so better to wait until I'm rested.


I'm still waiting for good graduation pictures to come my way - zoom lens pictures.


Emily came up today to get her teeth cleaned, and we planned to get some shopping and planning done but ended up in Fresh Market buying cherries, strawberries, and sushi (for her). I got a turkey and cheese wrap, but after filching some of her calamari and tasting the salmon roll-up thing, I decided that was pretty good. She left half of it in my refrigerator, so I'll try a little more tomorrow - very carefully.


Looks like Emily and Ryan will be going to Atlanta for a few days this weekend, so I'll go up Saturday and try to finalize the table and chair rentals and the flowers. Finalize - that's a good word. It means it's in someone else's hands and not in mine. Time is rushing by altogether too quickly.


I have a new blog on my list to the right. It's the fun adventures of Sherry and David and the kitty brothers with a lot of quilting mixed in plus whatever David can find to get into. Spices?

I'm sitting here dozing, trying to think of anything that's happened in the past couple of days worth recording but obviously only unpacking and resting and working and trying not to panic over wedding-in-less-than-2-weeks-and-not ready feelings.

Graduation Weekend. Part I Banquet

The long-awaited graduation weekend has come and gone, and it was worth the wait. It all began with the arrival of these beautiful Mother's Day tulips from Emily and Ryan.

Frankly, with all the planning and communication back and forth and planning who was to send Emily flowers and when and how and being excited over finals being over and when everyone would arrive in Mobile, the idea of Mother's Day had kind of gone over my head. So when this bouquet arrived, I just assumed it was for Em and that someone had wanted me to carry it to Mobile. Once I recovered from dropping the vase on my foot and found the card (with Mama hovering and offering suggestions and guessing who they were from), I realized they were for ME! They are so pretty. I was planning to be gone for 3 days, so they went with me and decorated the hotel room and were enjoyed thoroughly.

The ride down was enjoyable. I had planned to have blood work done on the way to check my vitamin D level, but it was crowded, and I was ready to be there, so I fasted for no reason, except to save my appetite for the banquet. As it turned out we were too busy for lunch (2 separate shopping trips and 1 prolonged pedicure session), so I pretty much fasted until 7:30 or so that night. Too bad the dinner at the banquet was not worth all that waiting: A piece of fancy chicken on a bed of potatoes and about 6 green beans, but I pretty much cleaned my plate. I have to include this picture of Emily the vegetarian dispensing with her chicken. Note non-vegetarian Ryan's pleased expression.

(All my pictures were consistently blurry no matter who used the camera, but I'm hoping others will send me some nicer ones.)

Our table was very sophisticated. Chris doesn't eat greens, so he passed someone else his salad and beans. I shared my bread with Mike. Mike gave Ryan most of his chicken. There were more serious exchanges carried out that I probably missed. Sandra and I guarded our plates and shared nothing except bread.

The most important part of the night was the hooding ceremony where the graduates receive their "hood," but it actually looks like a cape. This was taken after graduation the next day. It looks a lot better with the robe instead of a sundress.
We're still hoping for some clearer pictures of the hooding, but in this one. Dr. Fell's cap/hat is showing above Emily's head, and that's his arms putting the hood over her head. You can tell how serious a ceremony it was by the big grin on the face of Dr. Irion and both of them laughing in the second picture. It kind of looks like the creation of a new class of vampires.


After the hooding, the class presented their gift to the PT Department - Mr. Flexible. Emily and Karen rolled him out covered in a sheet. He was not prone to being cooperative - hence the name Mr. Flexible. Here's the unveiling.

 
I kind of wondered how they managed to graduate without a skeleton, but I was told this is a special kind of skeleton - a shade more debonair than most!

Using his off-duty time to wave to the neighbors.

During the awards ceremony, Emily received the Neurology Intervention Excellence Award. I believe she was surprised, since she asked, "Are you sure?" when receiving the award. Here she is, having warmed up a little to it.


These are more pictures from the banquet.





Are these very professional-looking girls the ones you would choose to rehabilitate you?

Maybe these!

Dr. Fell looking very happy to see the end of 3 years of craziness.

Finally some good pictures!

Chris and Natalie

Dr. Em-A-Lee and Dr. Nat-A-Lee

Guest Poster

As we leave tomorrow for Mobile for all the graduation festivities, here are Mike's ideas (threats) for Emily's graduation. Not sure if this is for the PT banquet or for the big ceremony. More effective with the whole school present, I'm sure. Here's hoping he chooses the last one. (My comments in red)

Top 10 things I am considering screaming from the audience as Emily is receiving her degree.

10. Key lime pie, anyone? Anyone? Family joke. I would explain it if I understood it.
9. Today the University of South Alabama and Physical Therapy. Tomorrow? Life College and Chiropractic!

8. Ain't you happy for her, Bryan? What? Oh. Ain't you happy for her, Ryan? Whatever. Another inside joke that Ryan's ready to see the end of - but unfortunately never will.

7. PhD = Big money = MORE raw oysters.

6. Emi-Leeee. Bump-ee. We love you. Wave to Daddy, Bumpy, Emi-Leeeeeeee, hold it right there with that guy in the funny-looking choir robe and smile for the camera. BUMP-EEEE. Emily, I am goingcommando today. Whooo-hooooo. This is unfortunately more likely than not.

5. BE MORE LIKE NATALIE, AND LESS LIKE EMILY. (I don't care,somebody needs to tell her.) Emily's friend.

4. Why aren't they playing the Upson-Lee Knights Alma Mater for her? Emily's high school. Not sure we would recognize the Alma Mater (consolidation issues).

3. That's my daughter, Emily Windham. All you people need to knowshe is descended from good blood. Good blood, I say. The blood of Scottish warriors, and Irish kings. The blood of English sea captains and the blood of Creek princesses. The blood of Dutch merchant barons. She comes from good stock, I tell you. The blood of Viking raiders courses through my daughter's veins. Along with the blood of an angry transciptionist (WHAT?) and the type AB negative blood of a (bitter and jaded) textile worker. Do the names Meriweather Lewis and Stonewall Jackson mean anything to you people? Those are the ancestors who preceded thi--hey, tell those ushers that I'm not near through yet. No, I'm notabout to be escorted out of h

2. Captain Billy always said she could jayrake them snappers. I wish Captain Billy could be there. I wonder...

1. That's our daughter Emily. She's a person of infinite beauty and worth. We are extremely proud of her, and for her. The fact that she has accomplished this today surprises none of us; but all of us, including those who have gone on before, share in feeling happy with this person who makes a habit of bringing light and life and energy and goodness to those around her. Go with God, dearest one. I second that!

What I Did Today

1. Got all the squares to the quilt finished and one big square put together. Amazing! Every square matched up.


BUT - this is just one of 4. I wonder if I could get by with giving a mini-quilt. I think the other 3 will go together ok - positive thinking. I have a quilter who has graciously agreed to get it done for me by the 23rd if I can have it to her by the 18th. That includes having the backing and batting pressed and ready. Oh, and this thing has borders too. Forgot about that. I usually love to do bindings, but I'm going to let her do them this time and put a hanging sleeve on the back. I've even had Mama clipping threads on the back for me. I guess I'll take a stack to Mobile and clip away this weekend.

2. Worked. The third of my four 10-hour days. They get long, but it will be worth it to be off 3 whole days!

3. Enjoyed storms all day. Nothing exciting but lots of rain and a little lightning. I'm hearing the thunder from the next round coming.

4. Tried to talk to Emily this morning. She's a little spacey from all the studying and all the celebrating last night. Sadly, Ryan's grandmother died yesterday, his Dad's mother. It wasn't unexpected but sad nevertheless.

Tomorrow will be filled with work and appointments and packing and who knows what else. Unfortunately probably not much quilting. I'm leaving early on Friday and hope to spend some time with Emily before Mike and Elise get there. I think all of us are looking forward to just relaxing and celebrating the end of school and not thinking about the wedding - until maybe Sunday.

IT'S OVER