My mom gave me these delicate plates and her mom had given them to her.

I don’t know how many Grandma started with, but by the time I got them there were 6. Now they’re down to 5. Following is a close-up of each:

It’s interesting to me how the gold border has faded or rubbed off differently on each one. I think this one has the most border remaining:

This one got chipped (on lower right) during my last move. It’s my favorite:

For links to more pretty pink things, visit How Sweet the Sound.

Every day I make sure that thing’s full.

I also bought 5 of these from Office Max (and Andrea painstakingly wrote our address front and back on each one) and stuck them at the intersections leading into our subdivision but the city took them away because of some ordinance, of which the sheriff came by to inform me…

Then he took a flyer. And Andrea’s boyfriend’s dad took a flyer. And probably all of our neighbors have, out of curiosity, because we’ve gone through lots of flyers.

But by gosh, we have yet to run out!

(Speaking of Rodney, here he is – had he been 42 – in 1980. Ha Ha! I just can’t get over this. And me! Aww, Class Couple):

I resort to things like this to subdue my house-anxiety. It helps.

Look at this big butterfly net outside the door:

I got a butterfly net for my 8th birthday – I’ll never forget. One day I came inside and my mom was in tears laughing at me. “Wha…?” She’d been at the window watching me chase down a butterfly with that net – swiping it this way and that, and never able to catch the darn thing. I guess I looked funny? Thanks for the encouragement, mom.

As soon as we walked in, butterflies were darting all around us. They swooped like bats and when you watched them fly off, it looked as if they were marionettes on strings that someone was jerkily controlling from above. They’re not graceful, that’s for sure.

I mean, it’s not like I’ve never seen a butterfly before, but seeing so many at once (and all flying right up and around you and taunting you) was a cool new perspective.

They gave us each these fans to combat the heat (so humid!) and also to identify the different butterflies. I kept laughing at Rodney carrying his around like he was on the safety patrol.

Pretty blue butterfly:

R kept saying, “That’s a [whatever type of butterfly],” and getting irritated with me because I was calling them all birds.

This one creeped me out:

They ARE just like bats!

All the butterflies were regular size except for certain blue ones. They were much bigger than the others and did the most swooping and darting. I really wanted to take pictures of them but they were so fast! Or they would fly right up to me and around me playing ring around the rosie, making it impossible. I’d swing around and twist and shout and NEVER get them in the shot!

I tried chasing, I tried standing in one spot and letting them come to me, I tried flailing all over the conservatory. Basically I was 8 years old with the worthless butterfly net all over again.

I ended up with one shot of the ever elusive big blue butterfly:

Until we were done and I saw the balloons outside the entrance:

I got your Blue Morpho’s right there. That totally counts.

Update: Oh My Gosh. So, The Stone Rabbit blogged about going to the festival and my jaw hit the floor when I saw what happened and the pictures she got of the Morpho’s. You won’t even believe it. I don’t want to talk about it.

His tradition he loves. Mine, well it’s causing more difficulty for him each year.

(With Andrea’s help, he did get them blown out. Hee!)

My Barbie wall calendar’s picture for August:

The roses on my bluebird welcome stone outside the front door:

The bellies of these bluebirds getting ready to take a bath (who knew my bluebirds would be providing the pink):

And one of my favorite bubble-makers when I’m taking a bath:

Hmm. That last one looks like a pretty good idea for a lazy pink Saturday morning.

It’s lived in the way you like to live. Yet it’s spotless as if nobody does.

When we moved in 2 years ago the front porch was bare, new sod was fighting for its life in mid-summer, (the next door neighbors had no sod), and the plants our builder put in for landscaping were little babies (some of them didn’t make it). See?:

But check out these pictures I took Saturday (right after scrubbing the front porch down). A little more personality, right?:

The bench = my birthday present two years ago and the rocker = Mother’s Day gift from last year. (Imagine a big, healthy fern hanging nearby)…

And the surviving bushes grew!

The lawn survived, too, and *sigh* I’ll miss it.

I do love the MOM tattoo.

But here’s how she would’ve looked in yearbooks from 1984 and 1990:

The first one is very Tina Turner but, aww, both are cute. I miss big hair! I want it back soon! The following is the picture I used of myself (you know I had to do this). I chose one where I was laughing, but not nearly as hard as I was laughing while doing these transformations:

OH MY GOD!!:

In the first one I’m a man, complete with 5 o’clock shadow (or Mr. Drysdale’s secretary on Beverly Hillbillies)… and in the second, I am my elementary school librarian! Mrs. Enke! Hee… the first picture I found to use of Rodney was from last Halloween when he was a male stripper to my bachelorette party bride:

HAHAHAHA!:

What a nerd Rodney was in 1952, good lord. But his 1986 is pretty Rick Springfield. Here we are as a 1950′s family:

Late 1960′s family:

1990′s family:

I’m about to wet my pants from laughing so hard. But get this. I showed Rodney his “1976″ picture and he said, “I have a picture with my hair like that! And I’m wearing THAT SHIRT!” We dug it up and WOW. His actual ’76 school picture looks exactly how they portray the classic ’76 guy look. He was such a slave to fashion. HA!

]]> http://kristiane.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/yearbook-yuks/feed/ 4 kristiane http://kristiane.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/about/ http://kristiane.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/about/#comments Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:02:24 +0000 kristiane http://kristiane.wordpress.com/?p=284 ]]>

• Kristiane Smith
• 40 years old
• wife & mom
• Kansas City

I had my daughter Andrea when I was 23 and I got my husband Rodney when I was 30. A few years ago I realized if and when I became a grandmother, my name would be Granny Smith. I love it!

Andrea is getting ready to start her senior year of high school and then she’s off to college. This means Rodney and I will be empty-nesters at 43 and 41 years old. Here’s Rodney and I:

Andrea:

We’re going about things as if we’re downsizing. We just put our house on the market to see what happens (for sale by owner) and are spending our extra time donating everything we don’t use and/or love and cleaning out the garage.

Join me as I chronicle this new phase in life. We may move to a smaller home out in the country… or we may move to a maintenance-free townhouse! Then again we may surprise ourselves and buy a place on lots of land and need a riding mower. (Though I kinda hope not. And I don’t think so).

Whatever happens, I’m excited to find out.

It was fun taking pictures for the listing, because you clean one room and just kind of scoot any extra clutter out of the way before going on to the next. The anxiety comes from when people visit the house and it all has to be clean at once. But that’s the kind of anxiety we’re, uh, anxious to have! Rodney already keeps checking to make sure we put the correct phone number on the flyers.

The pictures I took for the listing:

Somebody is meant to be happy here. :)