Cat's In The Cradle

Merry Christmas to everyone!  I hope everyone had an excellent day :)

Nicky had the best Christmas ever, in his exact words.  He was especially excited about Mario Kart for his DSi and his Night at the Museum 2 DVD.  Night at the Museum 1 and 2 are two of his favorite movies, and so we watched the second one tonight.  He also got a few traditional little kid board games, Cootie (who hasn't played Cootie as a little one?), Ants in My Pants, and Monopoly Jr.  He is pretty good at Monopoly Jr., he beat me on his first try.  He even got confident enough to give me advice during the game on not using all my money to buy all the properties, haha.  That advice naturally turned into a six year old's version of gloating once I announced that I was out of money and he won.

I'm not exactly sure when Nicky grew up so much, but I really like being able to actually hang out with my son and understand him and get to know his personality and what he's like.  He's actually pretty funny and awesome...a lot like his mama :)

Rave On

My birthday was this past Saturday.  I am officially 26...and looking at what I just wrote, who the hell in their right mind would want to be unofficially 26?  Perhaps a crazy person...yes, only a crazy person would want to go from 25 (which we all know is a whole 'nother ballgame) and pretend to be 26.  The only way I would do it is if there was a large monetary compensation, or something equally awesome.

Like, I don't know, maybe this badass pegasus.

I'd consider it then.

But seriously, I'm 26.  Four more years to 30.  Ouch.  I suppose 26 is a grand achievement.  If I lived in the 1600s, like in Jamestown or whatever, I'd have like ten years left in my life before I died a horrible death from cholera or smallpox.  I'd have 54516561 kids by now, all named after virtues and kings and whatever, married to a guy named James Blacksmitherson and living in a leaky shack shittily constructed out of logs and mud and no windows.  I'd be all about sewing and hanging out with my equally fabulous friends, Rebecca and Prudence.  We'd have the best gray bonnets in the entire village.  The bitches would be jealous.

Oh yes.  They would be jealous.

But anyway.  Christmas is coming.  Tres exciting, no?  I am proud to announce that I finished my shopping for Nicky an entire week ahead of schedule.  I usually am rushing around on the 23rd, hating myself for waiting until the last minute.  This year, I finished on the 16th.  I think that warrants a high five...so I totally just gave myself one.  (I usually do this so that I am not left hanging, by well, myself.  Denying someone a high five is such an asshole move, and I am not an asshole.)  Perhaps this early shoppage is a part of turning 26?  Perhaps.

Or I just remembered to do it early this year. 

A Falling Through

This makes me sad.

The state of Georgia executed a man tonight who most likely was innocent of the crime he was convicted, yet the biggest topic on my Facebook news feed is the new layout.  In my opinion Troy Davis outweighs Facebook's new layout any day.

There was so much outrage on the social network when Casey Anthony was acquitted of murdering her two year old daughter based solely on reasonable doubt, yet we all knew she was guilty.  Anyone familiar with the basics of Davis' case knows that his entire case was riddled with reasonable doubt, much like Anthony's--no murder weapon was ever found, seven of the nine witnesses who testified against Davis recanted or changed parts or all of their testimony and claimed that they were coerced under duress, it is believed that another one of the witnesses was the actual murderer...and yet, Davis was found guilty of murder, and ultimately executed at 10:53 pm.  Where is the outrage now?  Where is the anger over the judicial system now?

It appears that any anger on my Facebook news feed is directed at the new layout, which seems to have pissed off plenty of people, excluding yours truly.  I don't have any issues with it.  I can still do what I go on to the site to do, and if I couldn't, well...I'd figure it out, like the last time Mark Zuckerberg changed things up.  Change happens.  Updates occur.  Big deal. You adapt and move on...because you know in a few months or a year, Facebook will change things up again.

But Troy Davis will never take another breath.  Troy Davis will never get to prove his innocence.  Troy Davis may have been wrongly executed while the real killer, believed to be Sylvester "Redd" Coles, spends the rest of his life a free man because the state of Georgia will never investigate that trail and openly admit that they may have killed the wrong person.  And the MacPhail family may never really know who killed Mark MacPhail that night at Burger King in 1989.  We may never know if Troy Davis was the one who pulled the trigger.

And that, to me at least, is more frustrating than the way my news feed shows up when I log in on Facebook.

Honey Bee

Another wonderful moment with Nicky (taken at the zoo, edited by Instagram):

White Daisy Passing

I somehow unexpectedly wound up on a two month hiatus. To all my loyal readers and friends, I am so sorry.

It's like they say: When it rains, it pours. And it was getting to be where I needed to carry a metaphorical umbrella at all times :\

One of my co-workers fell from a moving vehicle and shattered the back of his skull in the end of July and roughly two weeks or so later a good friend of mine fell off his ATV and had it flip over onto him and crush his mid-section. Thankfully and very miraculously they are both recovering. My friend even found out he will be a first-time father in April of 2012. Needless to say my mind has been preoccupied with those tragedies and with getting Nicky ready for school (he started first grade nearly a month ago). I also started class again, I'm taking a physical anthropology class online through my local community college, and I'm also trying to mentally prepare myself for my best friend's spontaneously unexpected move halfway across the country to Colorado Springs in about three weeks. I've had a lot to deal with in the past month and a half and juggle with the already hectic craziness of my everyday life. I'm getting back into the swing of blogging things and am going to try to post at least once or twice a week. My sporadic posts are not fair to you all, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart.

If I go this long without posting again, feel free to email me (lala1217@yahoo.com) and encourage me to post something :)

<3 you guys,
Lashawn

Ooh La La

I.
Am.
Melting.

Ugh, it is so hot. Like ridiculously muggy and sticky and the kind of hot where sweat pools in the crevices of your skin and you can just feel the sweat dripping down the small of your back kind of hot. July and August are two of my least favorite months of the year. I'm not exactly a fan of the heat, especially with the added delight that my dad won't get AC because "he grew up before they had invented it and he was fine". Well...that was 1940s-50s Tennessee. This is 2011. Blah.

I am actually looking forward to December and January when it is cold and snowy and I can walk around without feeling like I am gonna pass out from the heat. It'd also be pretty wonderful to wear my hair down without it being a soggy, frizzy 'fro. I'd also like to wear makeup without it melting or have my skin break out from the heat. I'm not big on summer. I never have. Give me the other seasons, preferably spring and fall, and I'll be content.

We are supposed to have four more 90+ degree days this week (we got to 90 today and set a new record high temperature), and then it's supposed to be in the low 80s until it inevitably gets disgustingly hot again.

Come on, late September...

Tinker Toys

Real life conversation that just happened:

(Quick backstory: Nicky is telling me how old his cousins are and how he doesn't want to grow up.)

Me: Nicky, how old are you?
Nicky: I'm six.
Me: And how old am I?
Nicky: Um, probably around a thousand.
Me: What?!?!?
Nicky: Oh, I mean twenty-five.

I hope you all had a great Fourth of July!!!