High Five for Monday

Sooo... it may be Monday, but I have been out of town, out of touch with technology and in the midst of all that is right in the world.  Now, it is back to reality and though the Five on Friday is supposed to take place on, well, Friday I figured I would (in pure Melanie fashion) jump on the bandwagon a bit late.

Here are five things I am loving lately

1.) Tennessee!!

 It is my place. It is the place I think my soul belongs. More on that later. Until then just know it is something somewhere that I am really, REALLY, REALLY loving! Which is why it is also number...

2.) TENNESSEE!!

Even the storms seem better in Tennessee. It was less like a horrible, Florida flood and more like this incredible, peaceful light show that we got to enjoy from the confines of a wrap around back porch while the storm took place right across the lake behind the mountains leading into Kentucky. 

3.) This book

I have read this book already but our 12 hour road trip consisted of dramatic readings. Babe is still working his way through it after reading Divergent and while he is not a reader he has managed to get immersed in some of the books I love (which I love him for). Due to school he has not really been able to pick it up since our cruise in January. Most car trips consist of at least some dramatic reading periods by me while he drives. This trip we actually made it through almost 250 pages. I have forgotten a good bit of what happens and so now we will be reading this book aloud together so I can finish it with him.  If you are looking for a new book series and have not read this one I seriously recommend it! It is right up there with Hunger Games for me. However, I would wait until at least September to start (depending on how quick a reader you are). The third and final book does not come out until October (which I was unaware of when I first picked up the series before out last cruise).

4.) This movie

Fe, fi, fo, fum... you should watch it, is is fun!

We just watched it and my expectations were somewhat low. I had wanted a movie that I didn't think would require much thought and gave Babe three choices. He chose Jack over Despicable Me and Keeping Score (both of which I still want to see). I thought this movie was great! A little icky at parts (the giants were somewhat disgusting) but overall a really cute story! And though most of it was somewhat predictable to me (there is not many a movie or tv show that can stump, I always call the ending) there were parts that I was off about, which I deem like worthy in my book any day. It was kind of Narnian-esque in the filming. One scene looked exactly like the scene when the White Witch comes to discuss the terms of payment for Edmund's treachery.

5.) Skype

While in Tennessee I got the first chance to Skype with my bro, who is currently serving in Afghanistan. Tears ensued, but it was so great to see his face and hear his voice. Well, kind of. One thing about the lake is that there is not very good wi-fi reception. This is great for the most part because I leave all cares behind. Yet, it's not so great when trying to Skype all the way across the world. It was hard to see him but it was perfection either way. He got a chance to see all the Tennessee crowd too, which was nice! 

What five things are you loving this week? 

A First Time For Everything

Just swinging in for the 'Whatever Wednesday' post that these great ladies have thought up! Thanks Shay and Alissa for the idea! 

I am not super great with the whole memory thing. I can't remember dates or time or tell you many specifics. Feelings and moments though?! I can give you some of those. Today's topic for this wonderful non-link up, link up that I am jumping in on is about firsts... Dun dun dun! 

My mind was going in many different directions... milestones, interviewing my mother about my first words (she's a tad busy trying to get out of town), first memories. Then I thought why not go through my list of "first" boy moments (Disclaimer: Babe if you are reading this you are welcome to stop now). I was a tad bit "boy" minded when I was a young soul (bless that child). My old soul has it's moments. I sometimes live vicariously through The Bachelorette as to who I would pick and why. It's sad I know, the show in general and the fact that I get such pleasure out of the drama. Any who, here we go!

My first "love" 

That one is simple. That would be my Daddy! 

My first kiss

Oh heavens. Who even knows?! My mom tells me I had a little kissing buddy in preschool. I can still remember one that was in the fort part of our playground when I was in elementary school. There were a few of the neighbor boys too. One who reminded me not too long ago when we were out with mutual friends. *Clapping hand to head now! Child, where were your parents?! Just kidding Mom!

My first "wedding"

So I think I may have like three different husbands. I am pretty sure I "married" my little preschool best friend in his backyard one day so that we could play house in his really cool tree house that had a zip line. Then I "married" one of my neighborhood friends. His brother officiated and all our neighbors were in attendance. He wasn't strong enough to carry me back down the aisle sidewalk so his older brother filled in for that part. 

My first official "gift" from a boyfriend 

*I use the term boyfriend lightly because I am not sure if elementary school should really count

That would be a pet snake - yes, snake - that he found and put into a plastic juice pitcher. He jumped the school fence to get it for me from the woods behind our school. This is the same snake that I named after one of my elementary school besties and the same snake that escaped its cage a few weeks after I brought it home. My Mimi was never fond of me having the snake so when she was over one night my parents told her that we gave it back, instead of telling her it was lost somewhere in our house. After finding it curled up in a potted plant one night, Becky, was taken to a pet store because we couldn't tell Mimi that the snake had just miraculously reappeared. 

My first "date" with the first boy who I had fallen pretty hard for 

Oh this night! This was my first high school 'I think I am head-over-heels' crush (turned relationship). He was a senior to my freshman. He wanted to take me on a date. Daddy did not agree with him. At least, wouldn't until he had met him. This boy happened to not live too far from my house, a two minute car ride maybe. The big plan? For my father and I to go on a run with him... A run! If you have read any previous posts you might know that I do NOT run. Anywhere! But I was young and smitten and so like many a girl in my circumstance would do, I laced up my sneakers. I tried to keep up, I really did. I made it maybe a block when it became one of those walk/ jog/ intermittent running things. We ran to a nearby park; the boy, my dad and me. My dad asked him all kinds of questions and they did most of the talking considering I was trying my best to breathe, run and at the same time not sweat too much. Then on the way back to my house we walked, the boy and me, while my dad did a cool down jog up ahead (just a ways). As a freshman girl I was slightly mortified, but I dealt. As a future parent (someday), you can bet on Babe being right there at the door ready to run down with any of his daughters potential suitors. 

My first heartbreak

Heartbreaks are tough. It doesn't matter if it's happening to you or you know you are causing it. It burns. The main one that sticks in my memory would have come from the one who takes part in the story above. It was a long story that is best chalked up to immaturity on both parts.  The first time I felt I dealt one was just as tough in many ways as being the recipient. It broke my heart to think I was breaking someone else's. Sometimes I think that whole courtship idea and not getting to emotionally attached to someone until you're ready for the whole marriage thing seems like a good idea. But try telling that to any person who thinks that they've already found it (even young naive freshman who think the whole world works like a high school love story). 

The first time I understood "love"

Each step in my life, each person that came before, taught me something different about what love is and isn't. In recent years I have not been hugely fond of the word love. For me it implies the love that we read about in fairy tales. The only name that fits for me with any clarity for what love looks like is Babe (and God and my daddy and now knowing what it means to love the little people I sometimes claim as mine, though those loves are slightly different). Babe teaches me everyday the true meaning of the word and the selflessness that is involved in being with someone completely. Love is about commitment. It really is about weathering the good and the bad together, especially when sometimes the only thing in sight is stormy seas. When it's right and it's yours and you know it was built to last you hold on, you cherish it and you work at it.

Ok so now that this post went from slightly funny to serious in the matter of paragraphs we are going to consider this a true 'Whatever Wednesday' post and say, see ya on the flip side. Excited to read through some of the other lovely posts as I road trip it to Tennessee! Yay for my first summer getaway!

How about y'all, any summer vaca plans? 

Any of you guys out there "married" to multiple people?! 

You know because those two questions totally go hand in hand...not! 

Daddy's Girl

"We stand together in front of the mirror, one of us old and the other no longer young. I think of the ties that bind us: our sense of family, our sense of place, our sense of fairness. The old man next to me stands tall, walks softly, and says nothing, even when his heart is full of feeling." -Michelle Morris

I can tell you right now I will probably not make it through this post without tears. Yesterday I spent the day celebrating the man that I have been blessed to call my dad. My father is the most amazing man I know aside from my husband; they share the title.  It was very hard to imagine that there could be someone that might share that spot with my dad.  He held that place in my life, alone, for many years. Everyone says that I am so much like my mother (which may be true) but I am forever my father's daughter. Just ask anyone who has so much as questioned that my daddy was anything less than the hero in my life; apparently, you do not want to know the wrath that follows.  This is something I did not know about myself until someone pointed it out to me after a discussion on if my father would come and find me like Liam Neeson did for his on-screen daughter in Taken. Sure as shoot he would and no one better try to dispute that claim!

My dad has a stillness that does not run very much through many of his children, but I would like to think that I have received many of my qualities from him. His determination at never giving up on those he loves is amazing. He has had every reason to give up on some of them and yet he stands, solid, against all that the world may throw at him. In a world where it seems like people are so quick to give in when the going gets tough, he shows me what it really means to hang on through it all - even if your heart is bleeding - and the reasons why, sometimes, it is so important. He is a shield. A barrier, barring out the world and trying to keep it from attacking, too strongly, those he loves.  He is a man of few words, surrounded by people who love to talk. Yet when he has something to say, it is as if the world stills for a second, just to lean in and listen. He is strong and noble, the very essence of what a man should aspire to be. I am so amazingly blessed by the example that he set for me and the fact the because of him, I know that my children will be able to be led be the same solid assurance in their own father. 

This man- the thoughtful one, the loving one, the funny one, the strong one- is a man who carries many titles on his back (good thing he is fit for an "old guy"). He is the provider. A lawyer who will probably never know the definition of the word retirement. It just really is not a part of who is. Yet, he is also a surfer.

A kick-your-shoes-off, sand-in-your-toes, paddles-the-lake-everyday (if he can't be on the ocean) dedicated boarder. He is a son, a husband, a friend. He is the best grandpa "Surf Daddy" that any fairy princess grand kid could ever ask for.

But the title that I love most, the one that he will be until I take my last breath, is my daddy. I love him to the end of the world and back again and am blessed beyond measure to call him mine.

*Even if he did give me my red eyes and fair skin, I still wouldn't trade it for the world!

Lazy Days

I am sitting here being lazy and knowing that I should probably move my behind, however, since I figured I would not find the motivation to do that at this exact moment I figured it was a good enough time to catch up on blogging. I was reading through some blogs and stumbled across the Sunday Currently with Lauren while I was reading posts from the wonderful Ashley. Today is actually Saturday but I figured what the heck? This seems fun and light-hearted for my lazy day and given that I am prone to breaking rules on occasion I decided I would go ahead and jump the gun.

So here is what I am doing on this Sunday Saturday Currently...

Reading: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets... for probably the 5th time. And loving it! Dobby melts my heart. How can you not love a soul so kind?!

Writing: This post and one about my daddy for tomorrow.  I love that man!! Happy Father's Day to all of the wonderful daddies out there.

Listening: To Hoarders: Buried Alive and Dead at 17. Yes, I am a channel flipper. I do not watch me any commercials... ick!

Thinking: About how absurd tv can be and how I should probably move from this couch and get motivated on getting stuff done, but I am just exhausted and the mind-numbingness is quite nice right now.

Smelling: Nada... I would like to be smelling some popcorn popping though.  I could totally go for a movie night right about now.

Wishing: That my coffee table worked like the house tables at Hogwarts and that food would just magically appear from the invisible kitchen that I am sure is right below my floor. I be hungry, but have no motivation to make anything. Man, I am really working it today. Please don't judge my laziness! Or my decision to use improper grammar.

Hoping: For sunshine tomorrow so that we can enjoy the day outside with my dad!

Wearing: Cut off sweats and a hoodie, I be scrubbin' and loungin'!

Loving: The fact that I leave for Tennessee in just three short days! I could not be more excited!

Wanting: See smelling...

Needing: To get off this couch, shower and get moving. But... I feel like that is just not going to be happening.

Feeling: Exhausted!

Clicking: Back and forth between channels when the commercials come on.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Saturday currently!
Anyone else having a lazy day like me?

House Elves and Engineering

Want this!! 

I find it especially fitting for this week considering the little cleaning that typically gets done has been left by the wayside as I have been in planning mode all weekend and am in teaching mode all week. 

I have been a little MIA the last couple days and probably will continue to be for most of this week. I am teaching an engineering camp this week to a group of boys going into first through third grade.  Yes, I said engineering! No, I do not know anything about engineering! But I am learning. And, the kids seem to enjoy camp so far, which is all I was hoping for. It started as a potential photography camp, which morphed into a games camp, which then morphed into Lego camp, which has now become engineering camp. Yesterday, we were civil engineers and designed newspaper forts and then today we were chemical engineers. It was a messy day, but have no fear nothing was blown up! Except for maybe my gumption... I am wiped. 

I am missing this blogging world though, so while I take the time to go and stalk some of the posts I have been missing out on (since upon making it home last night I did nothing but crash) enjoy a pic that I am hoping made my bro very happy.  Those fine little children would be my nieces and nephew. The ones at the bottom (other than me) are my sister, who takes claim to the two kids on the right and my other bro, who takes claim to the lil' one on the left. These people make me happy (and on occasion drive me stark raving bonkers; including the one in the bottom middle)!