I know that they have gills, but I don’t!!!!!!  Rowland and I flew into Chicago today for Nathan Wiens’ wedding.  As soon as we walked into the parking garage, we were trying to breathe through the humidity to get some oxygen.  After all, we don’t have gills; we have lungs!  Thank you, God, for San Jose and Parker.  People in this city have to die earlier than others.  First of all, there is no oxygen in the air.  Then, we have the stress level.  We rented our car; the car person gave us the key and told us which number our car was parked in; we drove to the exit of the parking deck.  The security person would not let us leave the deck because our VIN number did not match with our paperwork.  Right!  We stole a Ford Fusion!  The exceptionally kind (not!) security person wanted us to back up through 30+ cars to get back to the Budget counter in the deck.  Instead, I flew out of the car door on my broom to “discuss” the situation with the Budget people.  Instead of an apology, they wanted to know who gave me the wrong car and key.  Like I cared!  In the end, they changed the paperwork, and we walked all the way back through the parking deck to exit with our car.  No apologies from anyone anywhere!  Meanwhile, we were almost run over several times in the parking lot by blind drivers.

Our fun had only just begun!  We exited the deck into a torrential downpour.  Cars were running lights, changing lanes on top of us, pulling out in front of us….Needless to say, I had to take some extra medication at this point.  Once again, thank you, God, for a small town like Parker.  He could have actually moved us to this place!  We continued on to our hotel, but our Magellan GPS was taking us through every stoplight in the Chicago area.  After a phone call to our hotel, we received the correct directions, turned off the GPS, and landed at the beautiful Renaissance Hotel.

The Hotel is exceptional.  The wedding rehearsal went very well, and the rehearsal dinner was very good.  Nathan and Nicole have wonderful parents and families.  The wine in the lobby was worth every bit of the $10 it cost (per glass!).  We’re now settled into our room and are looking forward to breakfast in bed - on the house!!  We’re excited that no children will be crawling into the bed with us tonight (hopefully, huh?).  Looking forward to a good night’s rest in an otherwise way-too-busy for us city!!

Moving stinks!  My  house is beautiful; my kids have made tons of friends; my husband is happy about his job; Parker is a nice little town…. I’m so lonely, though.  I had the most amazing friends in San Jose.  I miss Girls Night Out at BJ’s with CC, Lauri, and Lynda (and sometimes Carrie).  I miss Tuesday afternoons hanging out in the church office and letting my kids run wild.  I miss their playing in CC’s office while I sat and chatted.  I miss helping Carrie with whatever her latest project happened to be.  I miss Wanda, Carrie, and  I beating Joren, Dave, and Rowland at Skip Bo.  I miss Buca di Beppo’s Apple Gorgonzola Salad with a couple of glasses of merlot.  I miss “Running with Scissors” or whatever bad movie choice Joren would make.  I miss the Cafe on Sunday mornings where I was sure to get hugs from CC, Lauri, and Miss Bonnie.  I miss my  middle-of-the-night-phone-call friend, Carrie.  I miss Oster Elementary and especially Ms. Sponseller and her first grade angels.  I miss playing on the beach late at night and watching the elephant seals.  So many memories!

I know that God will give me friends again, and I am so thankful for Amy and Grant here.  I know that I will be happy here just like I was in San Jose, but it sucks to start over again!  I’m sure thankful for all of the great memories, though!!  I wouldn’t trade them for the world!

I have an awesome dad.  First, he drove all the way to Colorado to visit me.  (Okay, maybe his grandkids and son-in-law, too.)  Then, he helped me paint Jia’s room.  When we first moved to California a year ago, Jia told me that she missed her purple room in Little Rock.  I have heard that statement from her no less than 100 times.  Now, she has a purple room again!!!  Rowland and Daddy went and bought all of the paint and supplies this morning, and Daddy and I painted it after lunch.  She is so excited!  She just keeps telling us thank you over and over again.  What a special “Popper” she has and what a pretty room for a pretty little girl.  I’ll post pictures after we get it decorated.  (By the way, that’s not the first or last room he’s painted for my babies!!)

If you’ve known any Braswells for very long, you know about the Braswell Cloud.  Braswell is my maiden name.  When you marry a Braswell, you also marry the Cloud.  Today, the Cloud appeared once again.  Mom and I went to tan tonight.  She went into the same bed she used yesterday.  About 15 minutes into my tanning session, I heard her holler, “I broke the bed!  I broke the bed!”  She had waited for at least 15 minutes for her bed to come on, and it never did.  Somehow, she had indeed broken the bed.  (Of couse, there’s always the possibility that the bed turned on and off at exactly the right times, and she never realized it!)  It’s the Braswell Cloud!!

Here’s the part I didn’t write about. My momma couldn’t get the sliding door to her tanning room to close so she got in the bed without locking the door. Worst of all, the door wouldn’t close all the way so it was actually cracked a little. She asked me what the worst thing that could happen would be. I told her that some man might come in and attack her. She said he’d be disappointed and stripped down anyway!!! Now, that’s guts!!!

My parents arrived in Parker around dinnertime last night.  They woke up early and drove straight through.  The mapquest said it should take 14 1/2 hours, and by goodness, my dad wasn’t going to be outdone.  He can even tell you how many times my mom had to got to the bathroom!!  They came with gifts and big hugs for the kids.  Carson knew they were almost here, but William, Kitty, and Jia expected them on Sunday evening.  They were so surprised, and we’re all excited that they’re here.  We’re looking forward to the next two weeks of lots of fun times.

I’ve had lots of experiences with my mom.  We’ve cried together, laughed a lot together, fought with each other, made up with each other, shopped together, traveled together….  Today, we had a new experience.  At 60, my momma entered the tanning bed for the first time.  I went in with her and showed her how to turn on the bed, change the fan level, and turn the music up and down.  I explained to her that she would have to lie down on the bed and pull down the “lid” before turning on the bed. I told her to be sure to cover up her face with a towel so that she didn’t get a red nose and assured her that 5 minutes wouldn’t burn her to a crisp.  The girl who was working at the tanning salon was so patient with us and put us in rooms next to each other so that we could talk back and forth.  We laughed and talked back and forth as we undressed and got into the bed.  At one point, the front door opened, and the buzzer rang.  Mom hollered, asking what the buzzer was.  I’m sure the other people in the salon thought we were nuts.  Finally, when I was just too hot, I told her that I was turning up my fan, and the conversation ended.

After we were dressed and back in the lobby, I asked her what she thought, and all she could say was that it was hot.  At 60 and 41, we created yet another memory that I will never forget.  What a sight we must have been!  Not many people can say that they go tanning with their mommas!!  Thank you, God, for giving me a momma with a sense of humor who’s always ready to try something new!!  Maybe I’ll convince her to get a tattoo while she’s here!!

Ta-dah!  My hair is no longer red.  It’s ash again!!!  I love my new hair stylist.  He’s affordable, knowledgeable, and did a great job!  Life is good!!!!

Today is a BIG, BIG day in the Smith household. If you know me very well at all, you know that my favorite (not!) thing to do is go to a new hair stylist. Since leaving Little Rock and Jeanna Latture, hair stylist extraordinaire, in June 2005, I have been to every hair salon in San Jose searching for another Jeanna. I have tried Long’s Drug and Beauty 101 as well to see if I might have better luck on my own. It has been a long, tiresome search that seems to have no end.

The search has moved to Parker.  Today, I go to a total stranger (again) who I found on the internet. He specializes in color and has been doing color for 32 years. He was in San Diego and has been in this area since 1990. Please, God, let him be the one! I’m not looking for anything amazing, just a simple ash brown ( NOT RED!!!!!) with a few well-placed caramel highlights. Instead, I end up with a reddish tint that gets redder and redder as the days go by. (BTW, I do love red hair, but not with my skin tone.) Maybe today is THE DAY!!! Is there ash in my future???

Do you ever have those times in life where you just feel like you can’t do anything right? That’s how I’m feeling right now. I’m not going to have a big “poor Kitty” blog party, but I do want to say that it stinks! It’s those times when you can’t make your family happy, can’t make yourself happy….It’s like living in the Twilight Zone! It’s knowing that whatever comes out of your mouth is going to be wrong, that however you feel is going to be considered extreme or hormonal, that whatever you do is going to questioned, blah, blah, blah! So what do you do? Do you just curl up in a ball and hide until “it” goes away? Do you try even harder while still getting the same responses? Do you run away? (At 41, probably not!) There seems to be no answer so rather than try to figure it out, I’ll tell you about someone who makes me laugh - really, really laugh!

My crazy middle schooler, Carson, can be the biggest goofball ever! He and I have such a blast together. I keep threatening to keep him home from school so that he can just hang out with me and make me laugh. We drive down the road and sing goofy songs. We dance around with our air guitars or cool band moves. We shake our heads until my brain starts knocking on my skull! We wander through Target and make fun of the lava lamps or the strange “art.” We banter back and forth with him constantly saying, “No…Mom!” and laughing like crazy. He has a quick sense of humor and loves to be on the offensive. He can really get me good sometimes. I know I’m his mom, and he’s my child, but he’s also a really fun guy to hang with. I guess he got his personality from his momma!! HA!! I know he’s a middle schooler, and he’s supposed to smell bad and have a bad attitude about life, but actually, he’s a pretty cool kid, and I’m really proud that he’s mine!!