lookit!

Check out my pumpkins!  I might be sort of proud of them a little bit. 

 Here are all the pictures, if you want to see.

grump

Lil Sis gave this to Big Sis on her birthday a couple weeks ago. It brings me so much joy every morning when I see it.

so great

I don't have much to say today, but I wanted to show you this because I love it.

childhood drawing of 4-year-old Telmo Pieper in bottom left,
recreated by adult Telmo Pieper 20 years later 

I apparently have some sort of fascination with improvements on children's drawings.

lewisburg

I may have neglected to mention that last year, UJ got married. He and his wife Donna will henceforth be known as Johnna.

Anyway, in October of last year, they had a nice reception at a friend's house in Lewisburg, WV, and that was my introduction to the coolest small town in America (in 2011).

Lewisburg is adorable. Adorable! With a capital A! Lookit:

and

and

It was a lovely little trip to a lovely little place. The only complaint, really, was that there was some sort of festival happening that weekend, which caused all of the decent hotels to be booked up, so the fam and I stayed in a very-un-lovely motel that we dubbed The Moldy Manor. I took a picture of the mildewed and rusty sprinkler in the bathroom for posterity: 

this is a picture of what the hotel room smelled like.

So then, a couple months ago, Donna's son got married in Lewisburg. It was an absolutely beautiful wedding at this idyllic farm in the country, covered in flowers and humming birds and fried chicken of which I have no pictures. There was even a beer canoe. You will have to take my word for it.

This time, instead of staying anywhere near the Moldy Manor, or Lewisburg itself, the fam made the trek down (around, back and forth, across, possibly in circles) a windy, narrow, terrifying "road" to a cabin not found on any GPS in existence that smelled, not like mold, but like sewer gas. Also it had no internet and I almost died.

So the wedding was gorgeous as I mentioned, and we visited Lewisburg the next day, mostly to sit in the coffee shop and mooch the wifi, and we determined that every single citizen of the town was at the wedding the day before. ALLofem. They were all there. Most of them work at the coffee shop. 

After recharging my life-force, Big Sis, Little Sis, and I made our way to Princeton to visit Lake Shawnee Amusement Park. Because:

So that was pretty cool. I guess the only other thing I wanted to mention is that on the road to the cabin (the part that was not too narrow even for him) this guy was out strutt'n his stuff every day and doin the peacock squawk. 

heeeey

Howdy. What's goin on? Just thought I'd say hallo. 

Today's a beautiful day in the mid-atlantic, huh?  A really nice day for a birthday. It's so lovely out that I decided to have my coffee out on the deck this morning and I thought it looked pretty so I took a picture.

I'm kinda rusty at this whole blogging thing, can you tell?

You know what's not pretty though?  This, which I've woken up to twice in a row now:

So I guess I'm going to have to start putting the paper towels away every night before bed.  No big deal, that's not annoying or anything.

These animals are so so so lucky they're cute.

a good stoop

When I was a kid, our family had a little summertime ritual - my dad would sit with Big Sis and me on the front stoop in the evenings, and we'd have ice cream sandwiches or creamsicles. It was just a simple thing that we did together, enjoying each others' company, the evening, the lightning bugs, and something cold and sweet. I realized I have a pretty good stoop for sitting and eating ice cream sandwiches, so I'm resurrecting the tradition.

I remember them being way messier.

the farmhouse

Big Sis took this picture on Christmas day 2003

This is the house where Gmaw grew up in Midland, VA. It's been vacant, and sinking into the ground, since Gmaw's brother John died. I don't remember when that was, but it has been at least since 2003. Gmaw's considerably-sized family needed to sell it, as some of them really needed the money, and the rest of them could no longer keep up with its upkeep. Some of us had hoped to sell it to a buyer who could afford to restore and preserve the house, while others of us cared more about the farm remaining a farm. The pro-farm contingent finally won out after years and years of not-quite-squabbling about it. Well, there might have been some actual squabbling. I think it probably sounded a lot like that word sounds - squabble.

I was in the pro-house contingent, and so I'm sad because I think it won't be saved - its foundation is pretty bad off, I think.  One never knows though. Maybe the new owners will surprise me.


four years ago: diplomatic quarter